


The Bare Edge

by saizine



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Affection, Asexual Relationship, Case Fic, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-14 02:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 122,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saizine/pseuds/saizine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>‘Wasn’t that what love was? Accepting each other’s neuroses? They certainly had enough of those to go around.’</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was a bloody awful time of year. 

February. Spring. The season of rebirth, blooms, renewal. John hated it. But then again, he’d hated almost everything about the world since the previous June. Not one wonder of the natural world could tempt him into a smile; not the crunching of autumn leaves, nor the first untouched snow, nor the sprigs of yellow daffodils outside the clinic.

_You… you told me once that you weren’t a hero. Umm… there were times I didn’t even think you were human. But let me tell you this: you were the best man, and the most human… human being that I’ve ever known and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie, and so… there._

It felt like an insult that the world moved on so easily. Forgotten so easily. John couldn’t forget him, couldn’t forget what they’d been and what they’d seen and what they’d done. There was no way to deny those eighteen months, no way to convince himself to fold them up tidily and pop them into a neat little box. So what was he supposed to do? It’d been eight months—eight _fucking_ months—and nothing had made the pain any gentler. He doubted if anything could. 

_I was so alone, and I owe you… so much._

He’d seen it happen to other people. He’d seen it happen to himself before, but not like this. Pain never became gentle, never became domesticated. You could only sedate it, chemically separate consciousness from reality.

So what had he done? He’d become angrier. Bitter. Occasionally, in his head, biting and cruel. But, mostly, he’d turned into a shell of himself. Not that anyone would really notice much, but he knew. He knew that he wasn’t John Watson the soldier, he wasn’t John Watson the doctor, he wasn’t John Watson the detective. 

_No, please, there’s just one more thing, mate. One more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don’t… be… dead. Would you do…? Just for me. Stop it. Stop this._

*

John threw the soaked teabag into the bin, and ignored the mug’s handle as he clasped it in his chilled hands. There was a window open somewhere in the flat, but he couldn’t be bothered to go and find it. He could keep his coat on—just like Sherlock used to. There was no point in trying to stop himself from thinking it, after all. It wasn’t like it was just Baker Street that reminded him of Sherlock… it was the whole of bloody London.

Another day finished. Well, almost. Not quite; he still had to sit through the interim between clocking out at work and climbing into bed. If he included the time it took him to finally fall asleep, the wait was even longer. That’s what he was doing, now—waiting. John didn’t know what he was waiting for, exactly, but it hadn’t arrived. He’d know if it had. So he kept waiting and kept making cups of tea. He habitually made two, even now, and he always seemed to use Sherlock’s mugs. It didn’t offer him any comfort. He wished that he’d stop doing it, in fact, but he was already on autopilot after a long day of patients and didn’t _want_ to think anymore.

Most evenings, John sat alone in Baker Street. Occasionally, he met Lestrade for drinks, even though they’d never been that close before Sherlock had become nothing more than a figurehead of their memories. Sometimes he had dinner with Mrs Hudson, but John couldn’t bear to see his own grief staring back at him too often. On the very rare occasions when he went out, he invariably came home unsatisfied (regardless of whether or not he'd had a shag). But, on the majority of all the calendar dates between that fifteenth of July and the current February evening, he sat in Baker Street and tried desperately to feel okay. 

He never did.

He could watch whatever telly he wanted, now, too. QI, Come Dine With Me, Mock the Week, even Doctor-fucking-Who. Sherlock had never liked Doctor Who—but what a Pyrrhic victory that was. He felt like a royal bastard for even thinking it. Sherlock would’ve just called him an idiot. Either way, he generally kept the television on—even if just for the background noise. If there was enough background noise, he didn’t have to think too much.

Wouldn’t Sherlock have been _proud_?

He glanced around the flat’s empty, half-alive living room as he gently eased himself into what had become _his_ armchair, and almost resented the fact that wherever he looked, the evidence that Sherlock had once lived there lay before him. He hadn’t moved the detective’s laptop, and even left Irene Adler’s phone where he’d found it. A book still lay on Sherlock’s bedside table, the spine stretched and bent as its own weight held the page. His coat and scarf were still hung on the back of the door, as if he was somewhere in the flat and may burst forth with inspiration at any moment. The bloody leather armchair lay consistently empty, as if one day John hoped to return home and find _him_ sitting in it. Sometimes, very occasionally, John thought he actually did see him—but only ever for a split second. There seemed to be something inherently wrong with removing Sherlock from Baker Street; even Mrs Hudson had found it difficult. It was as if she was removing all traces of a son from the one place he’d felt safe, the one place he’d ever let his guard down. It was a violation of consecrated ground. It was the removal of a heart. Without Sherlock, everything fell apart.

The only things that they’d managed to remove from the flat were the assorted body parts in the fridge (Molly had come around to dispose of them properly, and even stopped by a couple times after that, but she never stayed long) and some of the more extraneous bits of scientific equipment. All of Sherlock’s books, all of his case files, all of his suits and shirts—all of them were still there, lingering behind almost closed doors. John couldn’t even bear to move Sherlock’s toothpaste. If a bystander glanced through the flat, they would have guessed that there were still two inhabitants. In a way, it was true. You couldn’t remove Sherlock from the flat; he’d been a part of the structure, as important as the floorboards and the beams. It was like they were always waiting for Sherlock to walk through the door.

But that was never going to happen. Sherlock was dead. There was no place for hope anymore. John tried not to think of what residue could have been in the test tubes that made it to a nearby sixth form college. There hadn’t been any reports of large chemical explosions on the news, though, so he reckoned it was safe enough. The whole bloody city seemed _safe enough_ , but he knew that it wasn’t. He’d been immersed in the capital’s crime for eighteen months, and no matter how far away from it he was now, he knew it was there.

He wasn’t, though. He wasn’t really sure where he was or where he was even _supposed_ to be.

John gulped at the milky tea in his cup, even though he found himself wanting it less and less. That was his constant condition, now. Never sure, never really wanting, but never really not wanting, either. It was limbo, this. Purgatory. But then again, it’d only been eight months. Not long enough, really. But when was long enough—ten months? A year? Five years? There were no guidebooks for this, no helpful blog posts, no one else to ask for advice—because who the hell could offer help? He and Sherlock were normally the ones everyone turned to for answers. Now John couldn’t even find comfort in memories, because his best friend was dead and no one understood exactly how much that affected his life. 

That had been what Sherlock was, of course. His best friend. Colleague, too. Flatmate—obviously.

And then, of course, there was the fact that John had loved him.

John didn’t know exactly when he had fallen in love with Sherlock. Or, really, the better expression was that he didn’t know when he started to love him. There was no way for him to objectively say that he was ‘in love’ with him, and after all, he was bloody well dead and six foot under, so what was the point, really? But he’d known, he’d known when Sherlock had said _take my hand_ , and he had, and he knew. At the same time, he felt that at that moment he was the closest he could possibly be to the grand, illustrious Sherlock Holmes, but also the furthest away. He knew, then, that he was losing him. Perhaps that’s why he held onto his coat sleeve long after the detective had let go of his fingers.

Sometimes, just as he was drifting into fitful sleep, he would swear he could still feel the fabric under his fingertips, and Sherlock’s incredible warmth beside him.

*

Valentine's Day. There was always an influx of STI patients around the fourteenth of February. What a fucking _fabulous_ present. 

Either way, John found it easier to work through the holidays that other people normally enjoyed. Not that he and Sherlock had ever bothered with Valentine’s on any level, but he didn’t want to have to spend the day wandering around a city where the population was so obviously and so blatantly enjoying each other’s company. It had been even worse around Christmastime, when John could so easily conjure up the image of Sherlock playing Christmas carols on his violin. Actually, forget just images; he could virtually hear him.

Mrs. Hudson had brought him a chocolate orange cake last year, which he was normally exceedingly fond of. The problem was that whenever he opened the fridge and caught a whiff of the scent, all he could remember was walking to Mrs Hudson’s flat one day after work and finding Sherlock standing in her kitchen, licking the batter from one of the detachable beaters while muttering about one of his deductions. It seemed that even geniuses couldn’t resist cake batter. John couldn’t bear it; he’d ended up giving it—untouched—to Greg so he could share it with his kids. He’d subsisted on tea and biscuits, like he always did. No reason to change anything for Christmas when it didn’t feel like Christmas should.

No, he needed distractions, and good ones. Oozing rashes and complaints of ‘a burning when I take a piss’ seemed to do the job, even if he could have done without some of the more uninhibited stories that he’d been subjected to. There was never a shortage of locum positions, of course, and John took advantage of it. For a while it was as if he had a proper day-to-day, nine-to-five job; for once, he hadn’t needed to put anything on hold in order to run after Sherlock. Of course, he was still chasing Sherlock, somehow; the man kept popping up in his head, but staying just out of reach. It wouldn’t have hurt so much if the detective’s spectre would stay in his head, linger with his thoughts and lounge in his imagination. But John had to put up with glimpses instead, momentary illusions of intense feeling and connectivity that were almost immediately severed. Then again, he _was_ a doctor, and he probably should have been worried about his mental health. Hell, Ella was worried. But he didn’t mind; this was grief, and it didn’t have to make sense.

He took each day as they came, now. Yesterday always felt like a distant existence, and the consideration of tomorrow was ultimately irrelevant. Days were divided between being at Baker Street and being at work, and John wasn’t completely comfortable in either of the locations. At the end of the day, he was always both mildly satisfied and miserable. Like anyone else, he was tired, he’d been at work all day, and he just wanted to be able to pick up a takeaway, watch some crap telly and fall asleep in order to start it all again tomorrow. But when he stepped out of Baker Street station, there was little that could pick up his mood--because Sherlock wouldn’t be in the flat waiting for him, and he never would be, anymore.  He always used to be a constant presence, somehow there even when he was in the other side of London; the vacant feeling that haunted John’s footsteps wouldn’t leave his mind alone. It was _wrong_ , Baker Street without Sherlock. Broken, compromised. The man was virtually a part of the building itself, an integral part of its character. He would never have left voluntarily. Hell, the bloody man hadn’t moved when the apartment across the street _exploded_.

But that didn’t matter when he was at work—most of the time. The problem was that, like most doctor’s surgeries throughout the entire country, it seemed that each and every clinic in which he worked cared little for whether or not the reading material they supplied to their patients was relevant. The majority of the newspapers strewn about in the waiting room were terribly out of date, still brandishing headlines that everyone had forgotten months ago. The worst part, however, was that each evening, John had to walk past Sherlock again.

His face stared back at him from the flat, two-dimensional ink of a newspaper. Except he didn’t look at John; the face was always staring just past him, just over his shoulder or through him as if he didn’t exist. It was generally the photo of him in that hat, the 'death frisbee.' Sherlock had always hated it. John had rather liked it… once. Now it just invited an uncomfortable turning in his stomach when, for the umpteenth time, reality reminded his mind that this was the only way John would ever see Sherlock's face again. He'd always be scowling, or smiling unconvincingly, or desperately trying to hide; never again would that languid half-smile shoot across the room and meet John’s smirking grin, never again would a giggle at a crime scene exist anywhere except in John's precious memory. Sherlock's humanity had been stripped away from him, hidden in ink and archived photographs and headlines. 

Not that many people knew of Sherlock's humanity. Even John had only seen it in glimpses: when Sherlock had torn the Semtex away from him, when Sherlock had wordlessly asked for John's permission to call Moriarty's bluff, when Sherlock had honestly been betrayed by that _woman_ , when Sherlock had panicked and become someone that John hadn’t known, when Sherlock's voice had hitched and John had _known_ there had been tears on Sherlock's face before he'd before jumped to his death. So no, he'd never remember to pick up the milk, or remembered John’s girlfriends' names, or been particularly kind to anyone in his entire life, but he'd been human. More human than most.

And now, he wasn't. Sherlock _wasn’t_. He was a memory, a wonderfully dreadful apparition in the tortured minds of people who'd known him. Well, to people who’d loved him—and there were more of those than Mycroft had ever imagined.

_You’ve met him. How many ‘friends’ do you imagine he has?_

Enough. He’d had _enough_ , enough for him to have known that he was admired, valued for more than just being a remarkably efficient brain, loved enough to be missed. He’d had enough people who would have stood by him; hell, he had enough people who were standing by him, even if he was dead.

 _I believe in Sherlock Holmes._ That had starting popping up all over the city, even before it had come out that Sherlock was as honest as he’d always claimed. The first time John had seen it, his heart almost swelled out of his chest.

But, still, to most people who hadn't known him, he was just a picture, a collection of pixels and a momentary movement imprinted on film. He wasn’t a man, he wasn’t a person; he was a celebrity, a figure who was always an imagined personage. For them, him being dead was no different from him being alive. Whenever John thought about it enough, he had to fight back the tears that welled up in his eyes. How could someone so alive, so vibrant, with so much fucking _heart_ be reduced to so little?

Though that was everybody's fate in the end, wasn't it? 

John looked away pointedly whenever he had to pass the coffee table in the waiting room. He could move them, shove them into the nearest bin and replace them with some of Mrs Hudson’s issues of Good Housekeeping, but there was little point. He was in a lot of the photos, standing next to the towering figure of the world's only consulting detective, but the name John Watson didn't generally ring any bells. He preferred it that way; he didn't want to talk about it, really, with anyone who wouldn't understand. He frustrated his therapist to no end, seeing as he never had anything to tell her. (She wouldn't understand.) There was no point: to them, Sherlock Holmes was the man in the papers, scowling and obviously ungracious. To John, he was the man in the dressing gown shooting at the wall, the man who had attached a Cluedo board to their mantelpiece with a kitchen knife in a fit of frustration, the man he'd eaten breakfast with everyday, and the man he’d been willing to die for.

And no one— _no one_ —knew that Sherlock Holmes except John. Even Mycroft, his own _brother_ , didn’t know him. Oh, he know of him all right, and knew how to play him. Sherlock was little more than his profession, little more than the ability of his mind. Mycroft cared little for the rest of Sherlock’s mind, or of Sherlock’s life. He never even tried—or, at least, from what John had seen, he’d never expressed a wish to understand his brother the way most siblings understood each other. But then again, no one ever tried. No one except John. 

In a way, he should have been glad to see Sherlock's face on the front of the dailies again. Mycroft had turned out to be much more intelligent than John had bargained for (and why he had assumed that the man would have been so stupid escaped him to this day). The truth in which Moriarty had wrapped his lie turned out to be as much of a lie as Father Christmas. The version of Sherlock’s life story that Moriarty had fed to the papers was, to put it bluntly, a load of bullshit. Palatable bullshit, of course, and all of it entirely feasible—but none of it true enough to keep Kitty Riley’s article from being blown to pieces. John was pretty sure she was still being held up in the courts for libel; it was one of the few things that John still found to smile about. Hollow smiles, mind you—they never reached his eyes, and they never offered him any comfort. They felt like betrayal, and tasted bitter.

It had turned out that Moriarty actually _was_ Richard Brook. John should have known; he’d been the one that had looked through the man’s folder of proof. There was little sense in listing himself as a recurring character on a long-time soap opera if he wasn’t actually in it. At the time, though, panic had been creeping over John’s skin and he couldn’t think of anything apart from Sherlock. Anyway, Moriarty had been born Richard Brook. He'd grown up as Richard Brook and he'd killed Colin Powers as Richard Brook. He’d become Jim Moriarty at some point, and assumed a false identity that was remarkably secure (John wasn’t quite sure when, he’d been a bit in shock when Lestrade was explaining it to him) and operated criminally under that name while continuing to pad out his real, legal life, the one he could easily fall back on if anything went too wrong. Somehow, the line between Moriarty and Brook seemed smeared away; where did one begin and the other end? 

But then again, he was dead as well, so what was the _fucking_ point?

*

He left a bunch of daffodils on the grave after work. 

_Please... for me._

*

He had another go at casual sex that night.

It didn’t do anything for him.

*

A week and a half later, nothing had changed.

John had just finished convincing the very anxious Mr Leatherbarrow that he did not, in fact, have a serious terminal illness and instead was suffering from an all-too-common, persistent-but-manageable case of the flu when the intercom buzzed.

'John? John, I have a man here who needs some immediate attention. A… um…,’ The receptionist paused, and there was a rustling of papers that betrayed the fact that she needed to remind herself of the patient’s name. ‘…Gregory Thomsen. Says he's here to have some chest pain looked at, but he's obviously a bit battered.'  
  
‘Oh?’ he asked, disheartened. He’d seen enough people come through all sorts of clinics with obvious injuries that they completely denied—or, if not denied, explained away with barely believable stories. He hated the fact that he couldn’t help them. Oh, of course he could offer them fixes for what they came in for (a packet of Strepsils here, a brief course of antibiotics there) but he couldn’t fix their pain. But then again, he couldn’t fix his own, so what good was he for them?

‘Well, all right then, Josie. I’ve just finished with Mr Leatherbarrow, though I suppose we’ll be seeing him again soon enough.’

Josie made a small, understanding sound. It was one of those times when everyone knew what was going on, and everyone knew that everyone knew, but no one could act. They were bound on every front, restricted from every side. Too many people were trapped in their own mind, in their own circumstance, in fate. Not that John believed in fate, really, but… the instability and fallibility of humanity astounded him sometimes.

Especially when he remembered Sherlock’s crumpled body on concrete.

Josie’s voice brought his mind back into the clinic, instead of on the street outside of Barts. ‘You'll see when he comes through. I'm sending him back now.'

The intercom crackled back into silence, and the sudden withdrawal of a familiar voice left John alone with his thoughts. He was quick to busy himself with the obligatory paperwork that came with each and every patient; he didn’t really want to let his mind wander. That was an activity reserved entirely for the witching hour, and whether or not it kept him from sleeping was irrelevant. He either remained awake, or his sleep was marred with images of that day, of blood and terror and of the best man he’d ever known reduced to a limp and lifeless body. He could try black humour, of course, and say it made a change from sand dunes and bullets, but it just wasn’t true. He would have done anything to get Sherlock out of his head; that didn’t mean he wasn’t in his heart.

John was still messing about with the clinic’s patient information program when he heard the door to the exam room creak into motion. He’d only been in the Lambeth clinic for a week, and wasn’t quite as smooth with the computerized system as he’d have liked. His fumblings were made all the more difficult due to the fact that Sherlock’s voice kept popping into his head, reminding him that his typing skills were offensively subpar. 

‘Ah, yes, Mr Thomsen? Do take a seat, I’ll be with you in just a moment,’ he said as he tried to pull up a new window of patient information.

It took him a moment to realize that this Mr Thomsen wouldn’t actually _have_ any patient information, since he was most probably an entirely new face in the clinic. They always were, these ones. He changed tactics, clicking on the ‘new patient history’ button and hesitating as the entirely blank form appeared before him. 

‘All right then. I’ll just need to start with a bit of your background… you know, name, age, date of birth, that sort of thin—’

John had almost reached the end of his sentence when he glanced up, and immediately the words fell away from his mouth. There was no way—there was no way that it could be who he thought it was. But he knew himself, and he knew that he’d never mistake that face. Not when it was offered up to him as openly and cleanly as it was now.

But Sherlock was dead. Dead and _buried_.

‘John,’ said the man, slowly and—if John was to use the first adjective that came into mind—unsure. Except, John would know that voice anywhere, and it was never uncertain. Even when he'd last heard it, on a weak mobile signal and through the dread of the apparently inevitable, it was never irresolute. But it was him. It was _him_ , there was no denying it.

And John couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the English language anymore.

It wasn't just the fact that it was Sherlock's face staring back at him that made speech impossible. For once, Josie had been entirely right in her use of adjectives. He _was_ battered, his face littered with scrapes and half-healed bruises, and he looked as if he'd been in the wars. Then again, he probably had. And he wasn’t the figure that he’d known, for he had no billowing coat or cashmere scarf or quiet, arrogant confidence. If they hadn’t been flatmates and partners for eighteen months, he’d look like a regular bloke, with his ratty jeans, scuffed Converse and leather bomber jacket.

But he was Sherlock. Fucking _Sherlock._ And John didn’t know whether to laugh or cry… or keel over and vomit.

For a moment, the last choice seemed the most likely, as bile rose in John’s throat. And for a brief, ironic moment, he was glad of the fact that if he was going to vomit, it would be in a doctor’s office—like the location should matter.

‘What… the fuck?’ he said, slowly and almost to himself—it was as if he didn’t really think Sherlock was standing there, as if he was talking to nothing more than an apparition of his own desperate mind. ‘What the _fucking_ hell?’

Sherlock only had to open his mouth to tempt more words out of John’s. ‘No, no, no. No. Nope! You’re dead. You’re dead as a fucking dodo. No. No way.’

‘John, I—’

‘Is this it, then? I’ve finally cracked, have I? Gone completely bonkers? Everyone always said it was only a matter of time… and for once they were fucking right, weren’t they, _Sherlock?_ ’ John almost spat his friend’s name, angry in a matter of seconds. ‘For once you weren’t there to shove the truth into their bloody smug faces. For once, you weren’t there, and I fucking crumbled. Fuck you, then, Sherlock. _Fuck_. _You_.’

‘Look at me, John! _I told you_ , I tried—’

‘No!’ shouted John, his hands fisting at his sides. ‘Don’t you dare say that to me. Don’t you _dare_ try and reveal some sort of clever trick. You don't get to say a bloody thing about this! You jumped off a fucking roof and made me _watch_. You don't get to say a word to me about what you did. You fucked up, Sherlock. You _ruined_ me, Sherlock. And some days, I hate you for it.’

Sherlock’s face shifted slightly, but for him it was the equivalent of screaming out his disappointment. It was as if John had actually punched him, as he so itched to do; the thing with Sherlock, though, was that he wouldn’t react like that if he was punched. He could probably handle John punching him. He’d shrug it off, make some sort of sardonic comment, and swoop straight out of the clinic with a bleeding nose and stalk away into the London smog. If John was still as adept at reading Sherlock as he used to think he was, then that’s exactly what the detective had expected to happen.

John knew what he said. He knew that he meant it and he knew everything else that he wanted to say. Blaming was easy… but, then again, he also knew that he never wanted to let Sherlock out of his sight ever again.

‘Oh, Christ…’ he said, trailing off and aimlessly glancing around the exam room. Is this what they’d been reduced to, two strangers staring at each other from opposite corners of a battleground? When his gaze fell back on Sherlock’s strange and unfamiliar form, he exhaled heavily. ‘Sherlock, you bloody _idiot_!’ 

There was silence, and it hung in the air with a sense of victory. John had somehow made his way out from behind his desk, with his fists still balled at his sides and he stood in front of Sherlock, squarely opposite him. Sherlock looked as if he’d tried to take a step forward, a step back towards the life he once had, but words had halted him in his tracks. They looked at each other, and as he met Sherlock’s bright, slate eyes, John knew. John _understood_. Exactly what he understood was unclear, as it always was with Sherlock, but he knew and he understood and that was all they needed from one another. The anger was still there, bubbling under the surface—but then again, when wasn’t he on the verge of rage when Sherlock was around? It was almost comforting. 

And then, in a blur of movement, he closed the distance between them in a few determined steps and John's arms wrapped their way around Sherlock's shoulders. He pulled him close into the embrace, pressing so close to the taller man's torso that he could feel his hard, hammering heartbeat in his own chest. He didn't care anymore, he didn't want to hate Sherlock. He didn't want to shout at him, not when he stood there, intact and so very much alive. He never really hated Sherlock; no, he hated the way his life had gone without him. He blamed him, yes (and who wouldn’t?), but there wasn’t anything in the world that would make John let him go. And now, as he pressed his forehead into the soft fabric of the detective's shirt, he was home. He’d even go as far to guess that, from the way Sherlock’s hands were fisting in the loose fabric of his cable-knit jumper, the detective felt the same way, too.

John kept holding on for as long as he could. He knew eventually that Sherlock’s incredulously low threshold for genuine human emotive outbursts and saccharine sentimentality would be exceeded, but he couldn’t help himself. After all, this was a man that he’d loved, that he’d have died for, that he’d have protected to within an inch of his life and a man that he’d _failed_ … and he was alive, in his arms. Safe and sound. Sherlock would give him that much. 

‘I never bloody know with you, Sherlock, do I?’ murmured John as he stepped away, smoothing down the creases on his jumper. A quick glance at Sherlock’s face revealed his confusion; then again, even if you weren’t the world’s only consulting detective, what had transpired between them moments before made very little sense. ‘Do you have _any_ idea?’

Sherlock pulled himself to his full height. ‘Sentiment?’ he ventured.

‘Yes, Sherlock, bloody motherfucking sentiment,’ said John, but a smile was playing on his lips.

For a moment he considered spouting some nonsense that would give him an excuse to touch Sherlock, but the thought quickly left his head. he was a doctor, after all, and that was all the sodding reason he needed. He knew that Sherlock didn’t want any fussing, and he probably had already forgotten that he’d been obviously injured, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t about to let the man walk away with no retribution.

‘Bastard,’ he said as his fingers hovered over the angry-looking scrape on the side of the detective's temple, ’wanker... ‘ as he brushed across the cut at the edge of Sherlock's full mouth, and ‘...you absolute tosser,’ as his light touch grazed an inflamed cheekbone. John wished he could do something, cleanse the wound or offer some antiseptic or bandages, but it was past that point. He couldn't help him, not with these. They were a part of Sherlock's life in which John had no part, no say, no association. 

That should have hurt, but it didn't. Or, at least, John didn't feel it. It was a small price to pay if it meant that Sherlock Holmes was alive and standing in front of John Watson in (mostly) one piece. 

He didn’t give Sherlock a chance to flinch away from his hands, and ran them into the dark hair that was once only a memory. His trained fingers looked for anything that would indicate a head injury; not only had the man jumped off a roof eight months ago, but the injuries to his face indicated a struggle that would have invariably aggravated any lingering issues. But John couldn’t find a thing that would give him reason to worry. He’d worry anyway, obviously, but at least that was a change from mourning.

‘Go on then,’ he said, gesturing to the exam table that was loitering against the wall behind Sherlock. ‘Sit down.’

‘Why?’ asked Sherlock, obviously anxious to get out of the clinic now that he had John back.

‘This is probably the one and only time I’ll be able to get you into a doctor’s surgery, Sherlock, so you’re going to bloody well sit down!’ he said, exasperatedly. ‘And after all, _someone_ once told me that if you wrap a lie in a truth it makes it easier to swallow.’

Sherlock did that little half-smile then, the one that John had remembered all too vividly whenever he’d overheard something that would have made Sherlock laugh. He seemed more real then, more alive; the mask with which he’d entered had been the mask that he wore for the public and the one that never broke; the smile was John’s.

John smiled back, although he couldn’t maintain the expression for long. He only needed to see the cuts and bruises that were littered over the detective’s face and hands to know that there were more. You didn’t get into scuffles and fights that would give you those without picking up a few more painful mementos. He checked everything that he could think of: he ran his hands over joints, checked all the open wounds for swelling or infection, listened to Sherlock’s heartbeat and breathing pattern, but it was only when he checked the detective’s ribcage that John had reason for alarm.

Even Sherlock couldn't hide the wince that flittered over his face when John's gentle hands brushed over the sore, swollen skin on his abdomen. ‘Feels like a cracked rib,’ said John, quietly. ‘Come on, I need a better look.' 

The detective seemed to be reluctant to give anything else away, but John shot him a stern warning glance. There was very little with which to bargain on Sherlock’s side: he’d faked his own death and disappeared for eight months. The least he could do was let John take care of some of his more serious injuries, no matter how displeasing the idea might sound to him. John had often wondered in the past if the pain gave Sherlock a sort of distraction, if they always acted like a case in the wave of boredom. Maybe he could shut off when there was a crushing weight on his chest, or a massive headache behind his closed eyes. If he could feel pain, if he could _hurt_ , then maybe his mind set itself aside for a moment.

And, under the coercive eyes of the man who he’d left behind, Sherlock relented. He shrugged off his jacket with a shadow of pain, and from the expression on his face when he pulled the t-shirt over his head John reckoned that the wound was going to be a fair bit worse than the scrapes and bruises that were already visible.

The fair skin of Sherlock's slim but sturdy chest was mottled black and blue, marked with the clear outline of his fragile ribcage. ‘Shit, Sherlock,’ breathed John, swallowing heavily. ‘How the hell have you been walking around with this?’

Sherlock grunted in reply, but his intake of breath was distinctly laboured. It was as if, for the first time, he was able to show that he wasn't entirely all right. John tried to ignore the other half-healed injuries that were scattered over the detective's chest; he didn't really want to know how many of them were the result of the fall. ‘I can bandage this for you,’ started John, ‘but it'd need changing often. And painkillers—I can get you with codeine. I doubt you'd be able to get any from the chemist's, judging by your history.’ He paused, looking up to catch Sherlock's eye. ‘Plus… you're supposed to be dead.’     

The detective looked indignant. ‘I'm not wearing the hat. No one ever recognizes me if I'm not wearing the hat.’

‘Only you would still be bothered by that,’ muttered John, with a slight smile.

John could feel Sherlock try to chuckle, but the shuddering movement of his friend's chest produced nothing but wheezing. ‘Shut it, and sit still while I wrap this. Should ease some of the pain, at least temporarily.’

Sherlock didn’t even as much as whimper as John pressed on the injury, taping each damaged rib from the bone to the centre of the detective’s back. He worked as quickly as he could, desperate both to ease Sherlock’s pain and to fix all the pressing problems so that they could work out exactly what they were going to do.

‘Look, can you meet me somewhere?’ he asked as he handed Sherlock his shirt a few minutes later. ‘My shift's over in three quarters of an hour. I'll find you. Victoria Tower Gardens?’ John had eaten a sandwich during his lunch hour there once, and struck up a friendship with a particularly persistent pigeon. ‘I know you know where it is, for God’s sake I could ask you to meet me in a building that was demolished a century and a half ago and you’d know where I was talking about. _But_ _will you be there_?’

Sherlock looked at him as if the question posed was the most idiotic thing he’d ever heard in his life. 

Of course he’d be there.

*

John had just finished disentangling himself from a particularly sticky toddler when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

 _26-02-2013 15:36  
_ _I’m here. –SH_

_26-02-2013 15:37  
_ _Still breathing. In case you wondered. –SH_

And just before his shift finished, it vibrated against his hand as he was picking up his coat: 

 _26-02-2013 17:54  
_ _It’s cold. Hurry up. –SH_

* 

It didn’t take John long to find him, even though he’d decided on walking instead of taking the Tube. He could have found a cab rather easily, as well, but he hadn’t been in once since Sherlock jumped, and he wasn’t about to start that now. He needed some time to think—after all, how the hell were you supposed to act when your best friend shows up in the middle of the day when he’s supposed to be dead? Even with his feeble hopes that Sherlock could perform some miracle and _not… be… dead_ , never for a second had he ever thought that it could be reality. He hadn’t spent any time thinking about how he’d feel if Sherlock was alive. Because, hell, he’d been there. He’d seen the bastard jump. He hadn’t held up much hope for miracles.

And yet, there he was. Standing there, leaning on the mossy stone wall that separated the park from the river.

It was terribly strange for him to be there. Everything else was just so damn _ordinary_. He’d walked back through this park often enough after work to know what was ordinary. There were still students in the park, even though it was nearing twilight, and they gathered in groups around picnic rugs and large textbooks. Even with John’s limited observational skill, he could tell that the books seemed to be neglected for more raucous conversation, with laughter and cigarettes and brief exclamations of excitement. Dogs ran to-and-fro around the humans, returning thrown toys back to their doting owners and wagging their tails with intense, insatiable delight. There were couples on the benches looking out over the river, one or two with bundled up babies who, from the safety of their prams, gurgled and pointed at the fat pigeons that loitered on the stone boundary.

And then there was Sherlock. He’d picked somewhere quiet to stand, away from all the signs of life that characterized a London evening. Quiet, alone. _Alone is what I have. Alone protects me_.

John refused to let that be true anymore.

He still didn’t look right, in those clothes and with a cigarette dangling from his fingers. John could tell as he walked towards him that he wasn’t quite all right. His breathing was much too quick and much too shallow, judging by the puffs of condensed breath that appeared before him. He was moving one hand gingerly, as if it had been broken, once. No, that wasn’t quite right: if he squinted and rotated his head a little he could see that it was badly scraped, with bruises and scabs lining his knuckles—as if he’d fallen? No, that would be on his palms, especially if he’d scrabbled to keep his grip. This was on the back of his hands, as if someone had struck them, or inflicted pain in order to make him release his grip. How had he not noticed that before? Still, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it.

John came to a stop next to the taller man, and pushed his hands into his coat pockets. Neither of them said anything, at first, as they stood side-by-side looking out over the river that divided their city. John spoke first, his words prefaced by a deep breath that betrayed his emotion. ‘I didn’t know you smoked.’

‘Yes, you did,’ was the reply, dry and almost infuriatingly sarcastic. It was true, too, but John wasn’t in the mood for that.

‘You know what I mean.’

Sherlock nodded sharply, and took another drag on the cigarette, as if that was the answer to all of John’s questions. Of course things were different; John knew that, John expected that. Sherlock’s smoking wasn’t exactly the end of the world, or the signalling of a different man. Sherlock was Sherlock, John was John… and yet, they weren’t, not yet and not anymore. The wind was stronger by the water, and as the cool air buffeted his face, John wanted nothing more than to be able to push himself into Sherlock’s side and wrap his arms around him. But there they stood, both alone and both desperately lonely.

Yes, Sherlock was lonely. He’d known that, too, for a while, and now that he was back, it seemed so much more obvious.

John watched him through the corner of his eye and with a slight tilt of the head, and the cool breeze ruffled the dark curls that he’d missed seeing so much. Sherlock seemed to try and give it a look that would shrivel even the bravest of men, and puffed on his cigarette with renewed vigour. It was as if he was allergic to (relatively, for London) clean air. With a rustle of cheap clothing, Sherlock shifted his weight onto one leg. John had never seen him look so uncomfortable, but he couldn’t tell if it was his fault, or the pain.

Somehow, he doubted that it was the pain.

‘Give me those,’ John said suddenly, as he removed his hand from his pocket. He held it aloft, outstretched and palm upward. Sherlock looked at him intently for a moment, before pushing his own hand into his pocket and pulling out a nondescript box of cigarettes and placing it on John’s hand. John wasted no time, and took no chances: before Sherlock could stop him, he strode over to the nearest bin and chucked the packet in. ‘No more smoking. That’s your last one. Enjoy it.’

Sherlock didn’t acknowledge the ultimatum. John turned back to the anonymous city skyline and smiled to nothing in particular, shaking his head slightly to himself. ‘There’s still a box of nicotine patches at the flat. Might be out of date, though…’ he said, trailing off as the breeze picked up again.

He didn’t see the brief half-smile that sparked on Sherlock’s face, and he removed his hand from his other pocket. He held out a plastic bag wrapped around a small cardboard box to Sherlock. ‘Picked this up on the way here. Paracetamol and codeine, Boots’ own. It should take the edge off.’ 

Sherlock took it from him, and pushed it into his own too-small pockets. John could have chuckled, seeing Sherlock so far removed from his usual look. If Greg had been here, he’d have wanted a picture; it would have completed the collection.

Almost as soon as John thought it, he realized that everything that had been going through his mind completely negated the enormity of what had happened. Sherlock had been dead, and he’d come back. He’d faked his own death, and just wandered on back into his life as if it was entirely normal. It probably was normal for Sherlock.

The detective’s voice sounded rusty and hoarse when he finally spoke, breaking the silence that had descended over them both. ‘He was going to kill you.’

‘Who?’

‘Moriarty.’

‘Oh,’ said John as shifted his gaze towards the opposite embankment. ‘Bit repetitive, don't you think?’

Sherlock's mouth twisted into its characteristic half-smile, but it died away quickly. He tapped the ash from his cigarette into the murky water of the Thames. ‘Not just you,’ he paused, allowing for a drag on the cigarette. ‘Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, too. Three snipers ready to shoot if I didn't jump.’ 

‘Fucking hell.’ 

‘You are as eloquent as ever, John.’

‘Piss off.’

‘You’re just proving my point.’

John bristled, suddenly angry. ‘I think I’ve been doing just that for eight fucking months.’

Sherlock was, for once, silent. John felt a creeping sense of victory that he promptly beat down with a metaphorical stick. Now was not the time to be cataloguing the moments where he’d been able to shame Sherlock into silence. Now was not the time to be proud of that. Was there ever a time to be proud of that?

No. There wasn’t. Not when they were like this, standing out in the cold like stray tomcats. They were both obviously bedraggled and a little bit unhinged, but there was no reason that they couldn’t go home. In fact, there was nothing that John wanted more in that moment than to go home with Sherlock, crank up the heating and settle into the life he’d thought he’d left behind.

But it wasn’t that easy, was it?

‘Look, John,’ started Sherlock in the same strangled voice he’d used before; it was as if he was speaking to the cigarette rather than John, seeing as he started at it much more intently. ‘I—I needed time, and—well, there were things—’

John interrupted him. ‘I don’t want to know.’

The detective’s gaze swiftly from cigarette to John’s face, and he seemed to be searching for the reason why anybody would not want to know anything. The phrase _I don’t want to know_ was anathema to Sherlock; it didn’t exist in his mind. But John pressed on. ‘Not now. Later, maybe. Probably. Anyway, if you tell me now then I won’t take any of it in and you’ll just have to explain again later. You hate having to do that, don’t you?’

Sherlock didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. John knew that he was right. For once.

It was now or never, then. John knew that Sherlock wasn’t just going to come out and ask, even if it would have broken his heart not to.

‘So, are you going to come home or not?’

Sherlock seemed to pause for thought (although John doubted that he actually _needed_ time to think), and the left side of his mouth twitched into a smile. ‘No flatmate, then?’

John humoured him; after all, this was Sherlock. _Of course_ he already knew that he had no flatmate. He probably could tell everything that had happened to him in the last eight months from the way he pronounced Sherlock’s name.

‘You’re an idiot,’ he said with a reluctant, bittersweet smile, and he turned his back to Sherlock in order to walk towards the main road. They were, after all, going to need a cab. ‘I shot a man to save your life the day after I met you. It’s going to take more than you faking your own death for me to kick you out of the flat.’

For a moment, John wondered. He wondered if it really was all right, because if he thought about it for too long then, yes, it was enough. Anyone else would just cut all ties with the madman that was Sherlock Holmes. But he couldn’t, not really, not when he’d been given a chance that no one else ever got.

That would just be spiteful. 

He glanced back towards Sherlock, and grinned. ‘The name’s John Watson, and the address is 221B Baker Street.’


	2. Chapter 2

Climbing into the cab beside Sherlock felt like coming home.

The gradual creep of warmth that seeped through John’s chilled limbs that came from that journey was even more potent than the subterranean pleasure that came with stepping back into the flat with Sherlock hot on his heels. If he thought about it enough, he probably would have said that that particular crossing of the threshold—the departure of the public sphere and entry into their private world—was so much more exhilarating than any that they’d experienced after a case… or would experience in the future. There was no feeling in the world that could replace being given everything you’d ever dreamt of back again in one piece.

As much as John would have liked to keep Sherlock in his sight, once they charged back up the stairs and into their sitting room ( _their_ , how John preferred saying _their_ ) he forced himself not to hover. After all, they were both in their thirties, and Sherlock didn’t need someone to follow him around all the time. No matter how much John felt like someone needed to take care of Sherlock—and that he was probably the best one to do it—the man had managed to survive and survive well for thirty-odd years before John arrived. And, probably, before anyone cared.

John cared, though, and he forced himself into the kitchen as Sherlock wandered around. He knew, somewhere deep inside his brain, that Sherlock needed time on his own. No matter how much he’d love to be able to say that he thought Sherlock could throw himself off a building and disappear with little to no thought about his own life, he reckoned that Sherlock loved home more than most. He needed his own time to say hello. John wasn’t about to go anywhere, after all. He could let 221B have him while the kettle boiled.

It didn’t stop his mind racing, though. Though, it might not necessarily have been _racing_ , seeing as his mind had slowed to such a sluggish state recently that thinking at any normal idiot’s pace would have seemed dangerous. Every creak and groan of hundred-year-old floors screamed out to John’s ears, even as he busied himself with the fridge. The temptation just to stand and listen was great, but John didn’t want to have to explain to Sherlock why he’d just left the tea to stew in favor of standing and staring into space. He’d become a lot more observant of noises and other meddlings in the flat since the detective’s death—or, well, the lack of them. John had thought he’d heard that gait many a time.

There was a loud crash as he poured the boiling water into the teapot. John ignored it. He could deal with loud bangs and sudden breakages. It was the silence that he didn’t want to have to deal with. Sherlock’s galumphing around seemed to put that idea to rest, though, as he heard the detective stalk through the kitchen somewhere behind him and disappear in the direction of the bathroom. No matter how hard he tried, John couldn’t prevent his thoughts from following him. Was the flat even prepared for two inhabitants? Why wouldn’t it be, though? His toothpaste was still in the mug he’d appropriated that first week. It might have been out of date, but… could toothpaste go off in eight months? Could toothpaste even go off? He didn’t know. He’d never had to check before.

He’d managed to pour one and a half cups of tea before he realized that the footsteps on the stairs were definitely not Sherlock’s. The rhythm was all wrong; there was no silent overconfidence in the pressure on the creaking steps. John glanced at his watch, and his stomach dropped; Monday. It was fucking Monday. Mrs Hudson went to the shops on Monday—and they’d adopted some sort of strange pseudo-ritual. She’d bring him a pack of chocolate Hobnobs and they’d have a cuppa and they’d both end up close to tears on either side of a doorway. It was a really shitty way of spending a Monday evening, actually, but they’d done it close to every week once they’d settled into what they’d thought was reality.

John scalded his fingers as he hastily put down the teapot, and he wiped his dry hands absentmindedly on a tea towel as he desperately tried to think of the best course of action. Of course she’d have to find out—she was their landlady, after all, and there was another tenant, now—and there was no way that she wouldn’t find out. Even Sherlock couldn’t hide from her, not if she really wanted to find out what was going on. John doubted that he wanted to stay hiding either, otherwise he wouldn’t have come back to the flat, but still… was it really his place to tell her? Was it his responsibility? It probably wasn’t, but if he left it to Sherlock, poor Mrs Hudson would probably end up in A&E with an acute myocardial infarction. Gentleness wasn’t necessarily his strong point, even with her.   

_Don’t snivel, Mrs Hudson. It’ll do nothing to impede the flight of a bullet._

There was a knock on the door, one that John recognized as their perfunctory recognition of politeness. She would just open the door in a matter of seconds. He left the cups of tea to their own devices as he made a beeline for the door. If he could just get her alone and explain, before… 

‘Do come in, Mrs Hudson!’

Mother _fucker._

He really wasn’t wasting any time in getting back to being a pain in the arse, was he? 

John paused, his arm outstretched and his palm resting on the door handle. Yet there wasn’t anything he could do, and he had definitely just heard the unfortunate crunch of the day’s shopping against the landing’s hardwood floors. He took a deep breath as he heard Sherlock begin the short journey back to the living room, and he hauled the door open.

Mrs Hudson stood in the doorway, her face slack with shock and disbelief. The Waitrose bags around her feet had survived the fall rather well, although John doubted that his Hobnobs would be in one piece. 

‘You’re pulling my leg,’ she said, as a bottle of sparkling water rolled past her feet. ‘That’s not him.’

John didn’t really know what to do with his face or the words that swirled around in his mind. How did you tell someone that the person who was as good as her son, who they’d thought had thrown themselves off the roof of a building in Smithfield, was actually standing in the flat that she still let to his ex-flatmate? There were no words for that. There were no words for any of it. Well, Sherlock could probably find some (the eloquent bastard) but he didn’t seem to be in the mood for being moderately helpful.

‘No,’ John croaked. ‘It really is.’

And why wouldn’t the look of disbelief remain on her face? The dead didn’t just walk back home when they wanted to. But there was no other way that he could recreate Sherlock’s voice without having Sherlock there to produce it, and the pure joy that made its way across her face when Sherlock appeared from the kitchen behind him rendered words useless. 

He was glad to duck out of the way as she rushed towards Sherlock and flung her arms around his neck. John smiled, again, to himself as Sherlock let her—apart from himself, Mrs Hudson was probably the only other person who he’d let hug him. Well, even then, he probably wouldn’t even stand for John if there weren’t extenuating circumstances. Nevertheless, he squeezed Mrs Hudson’s shoulders reassuringly, although John did notice that Sherlock winced.

_Oh_. His ribs.

Damn.

He made a mental note to not fling himself at people who have just returned from the dead. They could have injuries that render even loving hugs painful. Still, he hadn’t pushed either of them away, so John didn’t really feel a need to be too regretful.

‘What’ve you done to yourself?’ she said on the exhale as she extricated herself from the embrace, eyes raking over the multitude of injuries that were obvious enough not to ignore.

Sherlock half-smiled and cocked an eyebrow. ‘I can’t believe you’d think I’d attack _myself_ , Mrs Hudson.’ 

‘Cheeky sod,’ said Mrs Hudson with a strangled laugh.

John could see her hands struggling with the same conundrum that his had when he’d first been faced with Sherlock’s return. One remained resting on Sherlock’s shoulder, while the other oscillated between hovering in front of her mouth incredulously and trying to gently wipe away the scrapes and bruises. What he didn’t expect to notice, however, was how white Sherlock’s skin had gone since John had last had a good look at him. All the blood had drained from his face, and if John suspended his disbelief for a moment he would have said that there was an element of panic hiding in the detective’s eyes.

‘Sherlock?’ he asked as he pushed away from the side of the kitchen table.

Sherlock didn’t reply, although his shift in expression was answer enough. He looked as close to being sick as John had ever seen him.

‘Mrs Hudson, if you could just…’ he started, but the older woman hadn’t missed the signs either. She stepped back and let John square himself in front of Sherlock, and he grabbed the sides of the taller man’s shoulders to steady him. 

‘Come on then,’ he started as he pulled Sherlock towards the sofa. ‘If you’re going to be sick on anyone, aim at me. God knows you’ve shocked Mrs Hudson enough for today.’ 

Once he’d managed to get the detective to sit down, he rested on his knees in front of him as he listened to Sherlock’s shallow breathing. Mrs Hudson lingered behind them, although she did have the presence of mind to shut the door. John had to smile; even she handled it a bit better than he did. But that was irrelevant, for Sherlock— _Sherlock!_ —had almost keeled over and fainted. 

John turned to Mrs. Hudson, his hands still flat on either side of Sherlock's chest, underneath the dreadful jacket but on top of the shirt. He may have been facing her, looking at her even, but his mind was busy mapping any inconsistencies in Sherlock's laboured rhythm of inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. ‘Can you get a glass of water, please, Mrs. Hudson?’  
  
Sherlock grunted, clearly unhappy with this progression of events. ‘Tea,’ he said, defiantly.  
  
But Mrs Hudson already had a glass under the kitchen tap, and John wasn’t listening to anything apart from his breathing, and so Sherlock got water—much to his distaste. He even glared at poor Mrs Hudson as she handed it to him. John considered telling him off, but he didn’t bother. When had Sherlock ever listened to his scoldings? Mrs. Hudson didn't seem to mind… just like he didn't mind. Sherlock glaring at them and launching into one of his massive, legendary sulks was better than their reality of the past eight months. It was better than him being dead. 

The fact that John could easily feel the rise and fall of his chest against his hands helped, too. He couldn’t be dead if he was breathing, even if he felt a bit sick if he looked at the bruising for too long. He really shouldn’t feel that way—he was a doctor, after all—but this was _Sherlock_. Sherlock had seemed invincible, seemed as if nothing could conquer him. Yet here he was, at the mercy of an ex-army doctor, sat on his own settee in his own flat with his flatmate’s trained hands trying to see if his breathing was asymmetrical.

It wasn’t. But John kept his hands there anyway. At least, until Mrs Hudson silently handed him a cup of tea—but even then, he only removed one.

Sherlock eyed him warily through slightly squinted eyes, but he didn’t say anything. No doubt he was plotting something, but that wasn’t John’s concern. What _was_ his concern was whether or not Sherlock had the common sense to keep himself from getting some secondary condition as a result of his rib injury. Oh, of course, he’d know the risks and he’d know the theory of what he’d have to do to keep himself healthy, but the real question was would he bother? He’d never bothered before, not as far as John knew. He never bothered about anything other than the puzzle, the interesting problem, the _case._

Had he had cases, then, while he was away? John almost laughed out loud at considering what Sherlock had done to be equivalent of an extended holiday. How _quaint_. But he must have had something like a case, or something that fulfilled the place of one. Otherwise why on earth would he have stayed away from home so long? Why would he have everyone who loved him think that he was dead? 

‘Are we done yet, John?’ said Sherlock dryly, and John snapped back into the world that lay in front of him. Of course, Sherlock had commandeered his tea, but he didn’t mind. At least the man didn’t look as if he was about to keel over anymore.

‘Almost,’ he said, removing his remaining hand from Sherlock’s torso but not moving as to let the detective get up. ‘Take a couple of deep breaths for me, then—or cough. Either or.' 

‘John, don’t make a fuss.’ 

‘I’m already making one. Breathe in, deeply. Do it.’

Sherlock still looked dubious, but Mrs Hudson came to John’s aid. ‘Sherlock,’ she said slowly, with a vein of underlying threat that only a woman of her importance could impart to the arrogant Sherlock. Even John couldn’t muster that much implication in one uttering of the man’s name.

And, with a gratuitous eye-roll, Sherlock took a deep breath. Then another. ‘Enough?’ he asked. 

‘Barely, but it’ll do for the moment,’ said John, plucking his mug of tea out of Sherlock’s hands. He heaved himself back to his feet (and _Christ_ he was feeling his age, as his knees cracked audibly). ‘Go on, put something else on. You won’t want to move much once I’ve taken the bandages off, so you might as well be comfortable.’

Sherlock looked up at him from where he sat, and glared. That seemed to be his last weapon, now, the glare. John knew it was because he knew that Dr Watson was correct, and that he _was_ in pain, and for once, he _couldn’t_ really ignore it because damn, this was pain with every breath and no relief. John also knew that there were other symptoms, other signs that Sherlock would never admit to. Headaches, for one. Although the way that Sherlock slowly tore his gaze away from John’s in order to close his eyes seemed to be enough of an admission. 

Mrs Hudson stepped towards him then, and took John’s place. She leant down and brushed her hand over the curls that had fallen over Sherlock's closed eyes, and pressed a kiss to his temple. 'You know,' she said, lingering closely like a mother would to her son, 'you do look funny dressed like that, Sherlock.' 

He smiled at that. Ever so slightly, but enough for them to know. And then he was up on his feet, striding quickly towards the door that led to what had been his room for the eighteen months that he’d lived there… and the eight months he’d been away. It had never been anything but Sherlock’s room in John’s mind, and if Sherlock was inside it, all was right in the world.

Or… well. Right enough, anyway. 

He and Mrs Hudson simply stared at the doorway through which the detective had disappeared, then caught each other’s eye. Their thoughts were identical: where they dreaming? Was that really Sherlock? Where they both in some sort of mad alternate universe where even the most fantastical wishes came true? Or was this just what they should have come to expect from the genius that was Sherlock Holmes? And, perhaps most importantly, did it matter? Did any of their questions matter if Sherlock wasn’t dead, the funeral wasn’t real, and life as they knew it wasn’t over?

Neither of them knew the answers, of course, but that probably didn’t matter either. Sherlock would tell them, eventually, and complain that they never really saw what was right in front of their noses.

‘Will he be all right?’ asked Mrs Hudson as she gathered her Waitrose bags from the kitchen table.

John shrugged and sipped his tea. ‘I think so. It looks a lot worse than it is, really,’ he said, trailing off as he thought back to the mottled chest that their landlady had not seen. ‘The most pressing thing is the cracked ribs. They’re preventing him from taking deep breaths, so he’s either going to end up not getting enough oxygen and passing out or getting some sort of secondary infection. Pneumonia, probably, with this weather.’

Mrs Hudson looked worried. ‘Oh, dear, John… will you be all right? I know this must be… well, I don’t know… _difficult_.’

‘I’ll be fine. Eventually, I suppose. I can’t come out of this too badly. After all, he’s not dead. That’s got to count for something,’ said John with a smile playing on his lips. That was probably the most optimistic he’d been in months. Mrs Hudson smiled back at him, and patted his forearm. He chuckled, and turned back towards the doorway through which Sherlock had disappeared. ‘The worst thing is going to be getting him to sit still. It’s the only way to treat these things, and he’s going to go mental.’

‘You’re not kidding,’ said Mrs Hudson, laughing gently with him. ‘If you need anything, just call.’ 

‘I am not about to _go mental_ , John,’ came a familiar voice from the adjoining room, virtually dripping with condescension.

Mrs Hudson shook her head, smothering a grin that was undoubtedly going to cover her entire face once she stepped out of the apartment, and took her leave. John watched her go, and turned back to his tea when she’d slipped out of sight.

‘And so it begins,’ he murmured, wondering whether or not it was worth opening a new packet of biscuits.

* 

John had munched his way through three chocolate digestives by the time Sherlock reappeared. In fact, he was pretty sure there were enough remnants of over-soaked biscuit in the bottom of his tea to make up another one, waiting to be uncovered in due course. Though he’d probably never have a chance, judging by how Sherlock was prowling about the flat. It was much more natural to see him now, in his grey tee shirt and pyjamas. He’d even put on the blue dressing gown that John had draped over the foot of the empty bed when he’d tried to clean out the flat.

It was as if the whole of Baker Street had been waiting for him to come back. (It had.)

‘John,’ called Sherlock from somewhere on the landing. Why he had wandered out there, John didn’t know, but there was a degree of shock that came with hearing his disembodied voice. After all, he’d been hearing snippets of that voice for months, always a bit too far away and a bit too separated from John’s eardrums to be real. For a moment, he wondered if everything that had happened was just some sort of terrible, wonderful dream, and that he was due to wake up at any moment—but the scalding heat of the newly-poured mug of tea in his hands quickly reminded him that although the events of the day may have been extraordinary, pain was definitely a part of the real world. The absence of pain was one of the dream world’s few mercies; John’s problem had always been the pain when he woke up. 

John was running his hand under some cold water when Sherlock appeared in between the sliding doors of the kitchen. ‘John? 

God, he’d almost forgotten what it was like for Sherlock to say his name. ‘Yes?’ 

‘My laptop’s still here, isn’t it?’

John yanked his hand away from the water and grabbed the closest tea towel, leaving water droplets over the majority of the draining board. ‘No, oh _no_ , Sherlock,’ he muttered as he walked towards his flatmate. ‘Priorities! I know yours are completely skewed, but mine aren’t. Sit down.’

Sherlock had the cheek to look scandalized, but he obeyed without too much fuss. John did have to bribe him with the other untouched mug of tea that he’d abandoned on the kitchen table, but that was supposed to be for Sherlock anyway, so it wasn’t much of a loss. The fact that Sherlock could empty the cup over John’s head if he got too annoyed was a risk, but then again, John had followed Sherlock into riskier situations before, so a little peril was worth it if it meant that he was going to be able to give the detective some sort of medical treatment.

‘I’ll have to take the bandage off,’ John said as he settled onto his knees in front of Sherlock. ‘It’ll be more painful, but it’s better in the long run.’

Sherlock huffed, and sipped at his tea. John smirked, and shook his head. He smiled, though, and tugged at the hem of Sherlock’s top. ‘Off,’ he said simply as he got to his feet. ‘And stay.’

‘What am I now, a lapdog?’

‘I’d be carrying you around under my arm if you were,’ John called from the kitchen as he crouched down so that his chest was level with the cabinets. ‘You’d get into less trouble that way.’ 

John made to pull out the first aid kit, and had to maneuver his way around a few of the pots and pans that had recently made the area their home. He’d have to remember to reorganize all the cupboards; there were some things that hadn’t moved, but there were others that he’d squirreled away in the expectation that they were the last remnants of Sherlock that he’d ever have. He’d probably have to heave that permanently borrowed St Barts’ microscope out from under the sink before long, though the scolding he’d get for keeping it there would be preferable to the hell he’d go through when Sherlock decided life at 221B could get just a little too monotonous.

When he had managed to pull the overstuffed box out of the kitchen cabinets, the sheer weight of it made something swell in his chest; even this, a bloody _first aid kit_ , had become something that he and Sherlock had made entirely their own. It had quickly become a bit more extensive than bog standard first aid. They’d passed the Savlon and plasters stage long ago—although, there had always been some occasions when they were still needed… namely when Sherlock had ideas above his station and his scientific equipment had been feeling particularly vindictive.

He smiled, and wondered when he’d started to associate chemical-induced injuries with happiness.

‘Right then,’ he said, trying to wipe the wide smile off his face as he returned to the sitting room. He perched on the side of the coffee table, placing the heavy box at his feet and glancing up at Sherlock’s lacerated face. ‘You’re going to hate this.’

Sherlock winced as John reached out and pressed lightly on each of the ribs, trying to gauge which was worse. ‘I did say that my body betrays me.’

John smiled, dolefully. ‘Not emotions, though, this time.’ 

‘No.’

No, of course not. Not Sherlock. Not even now.

John sat back, vaguely aware that he was sat on the remote and several old issues of the Guardian. The livid bruises peeked out from behind the temporary bandages, and John cringed. He’d seen Sherlock battered and bruised six ways to Sunday; he had played doctor to a badly bleeding detective too many times to count. This time, though… he wanted to count Sherlock’s bones, label and match each one with its illustration in the texts he’d referred to at school. But then he realized he was being far too much like Sherlock, and set about pulling off the bandages. It was difficult to know whether or not to whip them off quickly or tease them away from the damaged skin slowly; either way, Sherlock tensed and stared ahead of him, looking somewhere past the top of John’s head.

Once the makeshift bandage was completely removed, John pressed his stethoscope to the left side of Sherlock’s chest, just above the second rib. The muscle jumped, protesting against the cold metal, but Sherlock didn’t. That was the thing about Sherlock: his body may have been him, but he wasn’t his body. The heartbeat distracted him for a moment--but only a moment. Even then, the steady pounding seemed too much to bear. It was as if its presence was as much of a violation of the natural order of things as its previous conspicuous absence.

2245\. Rate, type, rhythm. Left of the sternum, second rib, aortic. Right of the sternum, second rib, pulmonic. Left of the sternum, fourth rib, tricuspid. Left nipple line, fifth rib, mitral. All Patients Take Meds. Apartment M2245. APT M2245. Maybe if he could distract himself with acronyms and blind repetitions of training, he’d be able to ignore his own pounding heart. He wasn’t even sure _his_ ribs could take that much repeated strain.

When he was sure that Sherlock wasn’t about to drop dead in front of him, he switched to listening to Sherlock’s lungs. ‘Breathe in,’ he asked as he pressed the stethoscope to the skin above Sherlock’s clavicle. He knew that he couldn’t trick Sherlock; judging by the silent look the detective had given him, he hadn’t missed the fact that John had just gone through the motions of listening to his heartbeat no more than three times.

Still, no one could blame him.

‘And out,’ he murmured, thankful that Sherlock was (for once) not arguing. Perhaps even he could see that John needed this. Proof, proof that even Sherlock would agree to be definitive. After all, he knew which bits to take away without removing the whole. 

Identify the rate, rhythm, quantity. Obstructions. Six paired areas on the chest, seven on the back. Six anterior, seven posterior. 6AM — 7PM. John placed a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and pulled him forward—the triangle of auscultation. He took his time in this endeavour, as well, for even though he knew that he had to listen to the left and right sides before moving down to the next level, he did it several times. Sherlock noticed (obviously) but didn’t say anything (why?). 

Maybe he did understand.

Then again, maybe he didn’t.

When he’d satisfied his own misgivings as much as he possibly could, he pushed his hand against Sherlock’s shoulder until the detective sat up straight. ‘Right, well, I think we can rule out flail chest,’ John started. He ignored Sherlock’s sarcastic look; of course, Sherlock had already ruled that out. ‘But that’s still going to give you trouble. Keep taking deep breaths—’

 ‘—to prevent secondary infection. Yes, John, we’ve been through this once already.’ 

John pushed himself to his feet. ‘And yet it’s not got through that thick skull of yours.’

Sherlock took a dramatic deep breath, and quirked an eyebrow. John shot him a small, stern smile, and disappeared into the kitchen before returning with a bag of frozen peas and a loud tea towel that had undoubtedly been pilfered from Mrs Hudson’s flat.

‘Put that back on,’ said John, gesturing vaguely towards the shirt that Sherlock had abandoned on the arm of the sofa before retaking his seat on the coffee table. ‘Unfortunately for you, there’s nothing you can do except wait.’

He set about carefully folding the bag of frozen peas into the tea towel, making sure that there were enough layers of fabric between freezing vegetable and Sherlock’s bruised skin. If he tried especially hard, he could ignore the small sounds of indignation that were escaping Sherlock’s tightened throat as he tried to fold himself into the fabric. The man was positively fuming with indigence by the time he managed to get his arm through the right hole.

John ignored him, and pressed the peas to Sherlock’s ribcage once Sherlock had wriggled his way into his clothing. ‘Hold that there.’

Once Sherlock took over the management of the makeshift ice pack, John gathered some of the towels that he’d pulled from the washing machine the previous evening and rolled them as neatly as he could. There was a certain element of residual shock pulsing through his system and shaking hands—at least, that’s what he told himself. Still, he pushed through and placed each towel in the negative space beside where Sherlock was sat. His gaze hadn’t moved from John’s work the entire time, but he was careful to be seen to be looking out the window when John rested his hands on his own knees and searched out Sherlock’s eyes with his own.

‘If you lie on the injured ribs, you should be able to breathe a bit better,’ said John as he motioned for Sherlock to ease himself onto his side. ‘Keep the ice pack on the bruising for a while, either until it’s too cold or until you end up with mushy peas.’

John smiled to himself—look at that, he was even making jokes!—and Sherlock threw an arm above his head looking for a cushion to place under his head. As soon as he settled, John continued: ‘Right. Now just stay there until further notice.’

In any other situation, and with any other person on the receiving end, John would have laughed at the pure indignation on Sherlock’s face. The only other time that expression had wandered onto his visage was when Irene had pushed herself into their lives.

Before Sherlock could launch into one of his tirades as to why, exactly, he shouldn’t be subjected to the same medical expectations as the rest of the boring, ordinary idiots wandering around London, John held up a hand. 'You've spent enough time lying there in the past! Days on end, as I remember, and without one whisper of a word,' barked John. 

‘I did warn you,’ said Sherlock. 

‘Stop it, you love to feel sorry for yourself—’

‘I assure you, I don’t.’

John ignored him. ‘—almost as much as you love to show off.’

Sherlock didn’t reply. He couldn’t _really_ refute that one.

‘At least now you have a proper excuse to boss people about. Not that it’s ever stopped you before…’

‘Ha ha, John.’

‘You’re such petulant _child_.’

John paused, and Sherlock glowered at him. Somehow, it wasn’t as intimidating when he was curled up on the sofa.

'Toast?' he good-naturedly as he heaved himself to his feet.  
  
Sherlock pulled a face.  
  
'Takeaway it is, then,' said John, and Sherlock huffed as he fidgeted on the sofa.

John shook his head, but he had to fight back the urge to smile as he strode into the kitchen. It wasn’t easy, doing that, as he hadn’t had much to smile about recently—even comedy panel shows hadn’t seemed the same without Sherlock’s denigration. He couldn’t help but smile, however, when he remembered that Sherlock was back, and that everything he’d mourned wasn’t actually gone for good. It was back—hewas back. He was _home_.

They both were.

John shuffled the takeaway menus around in the draw that he’d opened; he didn’t really need any of them (hell, he’d probably got all of the decent restaurants on his contacts list) but he needed some moments to really consider what had happened. He found it difficult to stop smiling; there really was nothing that could have brought a smile to John’s lips other than Sherlock being alive. He was a lucky sod; no one got that chance. No one. Except him. So why was there a niggling feeling at the bottom of his gut that he wasn’t entirely happy? Oh, he was _happy_ , all right… but there was an undertone of the anger he’d felt at the funeral, the terrible indignance at Sherlock playing him one time too many.

Did it matter?

He didn’t want it to.            

He wandered back into the sitting room as he dialled the number of the Chinese restaurant that he hadn’t been to since… well. Since then. He hadn’t realized how much joy would come from ordering for two. If he hadn't been sat in his armchair being subjected to a very intense scrutiny by his incapacitated (and, frankly, displeased) flatmate, he would have let the tears that pricked at his eyes fall freely.

_I’m not dead. Let’s have dinner_.

* 

His phone buzzed on the table next to the armchair in which he was sat, and John scrambled to silence it before it woke Sherlock. The more uninterrupted sleep he could get, the better.

_26-02-2013 21:16_  
 _Pub? –GL_  
  
John smiled.

_26-02-2013 21:18  
_ _Not tonight –JW_

*

It had scared him, a bit, the realization of just how much he needed Sherlock. How much he missed him. How much of his life was wrapped up in the convoluted logic of the world's only consulting detective. Of course, the fact that Sherlock had been dead had just made everything twice as hard, twice as terrible, twice as _true_. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known how he’d felt about Sherlock; he reckoned that he’d known that when he shot that cabbie. You didn’t just do that for anyone, even if you had been a soldier. It was still a shock, though, because he didn't have years to worry about how he'd cope if his partner died. It had just happened, all in a blur: love, unadulterated pulsating anger, pure white terror, a plain and terrible silence… all ending with a crushing thump.  
  
And blood. Jesus _Christ_ , there had been so much blood…  
  
And yet, there he was. Lying on his side, facing the rest of the living room from his nest on the sofa, sound asleep. John couldn't remember if he'd ever actually seen Sherlock sleep before (if he discounted the times he'd been drugged and uncharacteristically incapacitated). Oh, he knew it must have happened, of course, but a sleeping Sherlock seemed as astounding as a mythical creature. But… there he was.

It seemed incongruous that Sherlock asleep seemed more of an abnormality than the fact that the man had just effectively come back from the dead. He’d staged his own death and buggered off somewhere for eight months—normal people just didn’t do that. Not that Sherlock had ever been normal, but still… there were certain things that _no one_ was supposed to be able to do, and that was one of them. Although John thought he really should have known; after all, Irene Adler had done it, and Sherlock had outwitted her, too, in the end.

John rolled his shoulders without getting up from his armchair. It was far too late for him to still be awake. He’d been up and out before half past seven, and it was almost a miracle that he wasn’t falling asleep standing up at three in the morning—especially as he still had to go to work the next day. Sherlock, of course, had nodded off hours beforehand; John didn’t even think that he’d noticed. One moment he’d been complaining about the uselessness of the trivia on QI, and the next he’d trailed off into a yawn and the land of unconscious sleep.

John had smiled, and got up to drag Sherlock’s duvet off his bed. It was only after he’d managed to throw it over Sherlock’s sleeping form that he settled back down into his armchair to continue slowly typing out an email. Not that that had lasted long—he hadn’t got more than three words down before he’d decided to switch off all the lights in the living room apart from the one under which he was sat. There really was an intense need for Sherlock to get as much rest as possible, and John wasn’t about to risk a rogue light or heavy typing ruin the serenity that came with a sleeping Sherlock.

Of course, he knew that once Sherlock was asleep, he slept like a log. But that didn’t matter. He did all of it anyway.

And he’d sat there, with a now-empty cup of tea on the side table and a newspaper in his hands, with one eye on the detective. If anyone asked why, he’d just use the excuse that he needed some medical care; after all, he bloody well did. The stupid bastard, not doing anything about those ribs. He must’ve known that he needed to prevent mucous from building up in his lungs, but he hadn’t fucking _bothered_. All it would have taken was a couple coughs here, a couple deep breaths there, but obviously there was something more important than his health going on in the world. (There probably was, but for once, John didn’t care. Someone had to care about Sherlock.) Sometimes John wondered how on earth he managed to get through thirty odd years and a rather dangerous drug habit with apparently little damage.

How the hell he’d managed to survive jumping off the roof of Barts was another question entirely. 

John ran a hand over his face, and heaved himself to his feet. Treading lightly, and avoiding that creaky plank of wood that Sherlock had always seemed to purposely find every morning while John was trying to sleep in, he made his way over to the window. He was almost surprised to see the same street that he’d walked down that morning staring back at him. London hadn’t changed, not really, even if Sherlock _had_ just walked back into John’s life and back into 221B. The same lights that had stared back at the doctor every evening still stared at him now, as he watched the traffic cruise down the roadways. There would probably be tube delays the next day, just like there always where. There’d be murders, too, and robberies. Sherlock being home didn’t solve all their problems.

But it solved enough of John’s to give him the hope for a good night’s sleep, and he hadn’t had one of those for years. 

He turned to watch Sherlock for a few moments. He didn’t need to, really, but it was a luxury that he reckoned he deserved. After all, he probably wouldn’t get the chance to watch Sherlock in calm stillness again; that bloody head of his never really gave him much peace. Then again, John knew that the brain could play tricks on anybody while they slept—even someone with a mind like Sherlock’s—and you might not be able to tell. He could remember far too many nights when he’d woken up with his heart pounding out of his chest with all the hospital corners still tucked into place.

John sighed and made his way, reluctantly, towards the staircase that would lead to his bedroom. He really should have thought this through more; knowing Sherlock, as soon as John left the room, he’d be up and about and causing more and more damage to his already broken body. But what was he supposed to do? Drag the man to bed and crawl in next to him? Not likely. Somehow, John doubted that Sherlock would appreciate that.

Nevertheless, he took a moment to linger near Sherlock’s head. He laid the back of a hand on the detective’s forehead—no fever. That was a good sign. John doubted he’d _ever_ be in the mood to try and get Sherlock into a hospital, and he’d have needed to go if he’d developed some sort of infection. But he hadn’t, and everything was rosy. Well, apart from that contusion on Sherlock’s chest. That was fucking black and blue, and John’s mouth went dry every time he thought about it. (He had to stop doing that.)

He had to remove his hand from Sherlock’s forehead, too, before the detective woke up spontaneously (unlikely, but did you really ever know with Sherlock Holmes?). But he didn’t. At least, not immediately. He turned his hand around, lightly laying the flat of his palm against the curve of Sherlock’s skull. He was _real_ , he wasn’t just a figment of his imagination anymore. He actually was back in the flat, he actually wasn’t dead and… John suppressed an urge to chuckle; _idiot_. What—an—idiot.

What the hell was going on in his head? He’d been out of his mind for months, barely existing in any meaningful sense of the word, and now he was chuckling because the man he’d thought he’d seen kill himself was actually lying on their sofa with some badly bruised ribs? He must be mad. Mad as a fucking hatter.

He was happy, though. At least, he thought he was happy. Was there any reason not to be, really? He could come up with a few, if he was being honest, but he didn’t want to think about them. It seemed ungrateful, and entirely illogical. But Sherlock had been dead. _Dead—_ and now he was most decidedly alive. Battered and wounded, but alive. Wasn’t that better than the alternative? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. John didn’t know. There was a lot that had been left unsaid, but their entire relationship seemed to be based on things that were left unsaid. Understood, mind you, but unsaid.

_Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?_

_I expect so. Now go._

And, with an almost regretful sigh, John went.

*

He was aware of the pain before he was aware he was awake.

Fifth and sixth ribs, on the left side. Possibly the seventh, but not as badly as the other two. Pain was sharper, more intense on inhalation. Some relief with exhalation. Breathing was shallow—too shallow. Too quick, as well. He’d not stopped and taken stock of exactly how severely he’d been hurt. It hadn’t mattered, really, when John wasn’t there to remind him. It had just been a distraction that was easy enough to ignore.

Then again, he’d had worse.

Sherlock’s throat and tongue felt thick in his mouth, which was parched. He’d been asleep a while, then; properly, not just a sneaky nap. He shifted, appalled that he hadn’t been able to make his mind overrule his body, but his foot brushed against a rough cushion and the blanket that slipped away from his shoulder was John’s heavily knitted plaid throw—not a duvet. He was still on the sofa, then, and as he felt the stick of skin against the leather where his face had slipped from the makeshift pillow under his ear, he was rather relieved to know that drowsiness hadn’t completely robbed him of the prickly Sherlock Holmes.

He could hear traffic from the street, and the clatter and conversation of the construction crews as they set up across the street. There was a police siren in the distance, too—northeast, by the sound of it—but the sounds were crisp. Too crisp. There was a window open. Why was there a window open?

It didn’t matter. Mrs Hudson had Radio 4 on, a bit of wishful thinking on her part as Gardener’s Question Time crept its way into Sherlock’s ears. She wasn’t pottering about—no footsteps, no shift of slipper against carpet—so she must have been having her morning cup of tea. Morning soother, possibly, with the weather as it was. Sherlock’s mind turned away from downstairs, and faced upwards. John wasn’t up yet, either. No careful footsteps. For some reason, Sherlock felt… disappointed.

He opened his eyes, and 221B lay before him. There was a mysterious swelling in his chest that was quickly punctured by his ribs as he heaved himself into a sitting position. He blinked his way through the pain, clearing the sleep from his eyes and bringing the room into focus. His almost good mood was dampened as his gaze settled on his phone. The screen was alight and angry, as if it had a message to deliver that it couldn’t get rid of quickly enough. Sherlock sneered at the device, indulging his capacity for childish feuds as he recognised the constant notifications on his call log.

_4 missed calls…_  
 _07:43 Mycroft Holmes_  
 _08:02 Mycroft Holmes_  
 _08:37 Mycroft Holmes  
_ _09:05 Mycroft Holmes_

Ah. Yes. He’d expected this. Mycroft could be painfully predictable. He’d been under orders (though Mycroft should have known that he wasn’t going to pay attention to them.) Of course, the difference between actually being physically alive and being alive according to the government was several days’ worth of sensitive and incriminating paperwork. Sherlock had been walking around for eight months, officially dead according to his brother’s office. And what had he done the moment that it was safe enough for him to go back home? Wandered down to Lambeth and walked into the surgery where John had been working for the past week. Asked for him specifically, in fact. Plain as day.

Risky—very risky. _Could be dangerous_. So many chances to be recognized, or for someone to sound the alarm before they’d planned. But this was London, where everyone saw but no one observed—where everyone looked but no one recognized. Sherlock had arrived without anyone giving him as much as a dirty look as he pushed past them on the street, and he’d just walked straight in. _John_. The first piece—the only piece—of home that he’d been impatient (Sherlock was not able to describe himself as desperate) to get back to. John had been there, real and tangible when he’d been a memory only an hour before and then—

The loud flailing of his vibrating phone against the top of the coffee table brought Sherlock away from the halls of his mind palace. He’d spent far too long in there, anyway, recently.

09:34  
 _Incoming Call…  
_ _Mycroft Holmes_

Sherlock didn’t even consider answering the call. He didn’t really want to speak to Mycroft at that particular moment—although he rarely _wanted_ to talk to his brother. He didn’t want to be scolded for going back home, for going back to the one place that he’d missed with the few people that he’d actually longed to see, when Mycroft had had the luxury of orchestrating the entire operation from his living room. Not that Sherlock would admit that to anyone. Their association with him had already got guns pointed at their heads once; he wasn’t about to make a second attempt on their lives more likely.

Hmph. John would have probably called that heroic.

_Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist, and if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them._

He’d thought that a lot, in those eight months: what John would say. He’d had to make himself stop. It… distracted him too much. The day Sherlock realized that was the day he actually considered cocaine again, just to forget, to be able to separate Sherlock from John and John from Sherlock. Even he couldn’t do that anymore.

Sherlock let the phone ring out, not even bothering to turn down the volume or to remove it from the noisy surface. He just sat there, limbs folded around his aching torso, and listened until he heard John’s feet hit the floorboards. Sherlock felt himself unconsciously recoil back into the leather of the chair; he wanted to see John, to be in the same room with him, but he couldn’t bring himself to go to John when John could—for the first time in the past eight months—come to him.

He closed his eyes as John came down the stairs; the doctor was favouring his leg, again, though only when he’d been inactive for a long period of sleep. John hadn’t mentioned it, and Sherlock could ascertain no definite sign that the limp was back in full force. Yet there was an irrational twang in Sherlock’s throat that jerked his eyes open. 

‘Morning,’ was John’s greeting as he stepped across the threshold, yawning and running a hand over his face before he spotted the kettle and made a beeline to the kitchen.

Sherlock watched him go, his head inclined so that his intense interest wasn’t obvious. John was wearing that long sleeved shirt again, the one that was striped like some sort of preemptive cartoon robber. He’d had a late night, yet although he’d had difficulty getting to sleep, once he was there, he’d slept deeply. Should really invest in a new pillow, too, but he’d apparently gone a bit sentimental. But… well, from all the yawns and aches for hands to rub, it looked as if John hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a long time. Too long a time. Though, who was he to judge? Sherlock never slept more than two hours at a time. And it was odd for him to be up before John—his two hours were always early mornings, sunrises, when he had the luxury of choosing. Sherlock turned back to the headlines on his phone, wanting but not sure how to take.

‘Tea?’

‘Mmhm,’ said Sherlock, nodding although he knew that John wasn't looking at him. He'd make him a cup anyway. He always did.

It was funny, really, how intimate an act making tea was. So many steps. Water, kettle, boil, teabag, mug…  Then you had to watch the solution as to ascertain the exact moment when it was suitable to drink and entirely not stewed (Sherlock couldn't _stand_ stewed tea). Then you had to know exactly how the person took their tea, exactly how much milk or sugar or whatever else there was to stick in. So very... messy. And time-consuming. And yet John did it for him every day. Multiple times. Interesting. _Fascinating_ , in fact.

John appeared at Sherlock’s shoulder and handed him his mug of tea in a way that suggested he’d never had to make just one, even though Sherlock knew full well that he had. He thought he felt that John wanted to say something, a word on the tip of his tongue knocking its way out through his teeth, but John didn’t. He let Sherlock cradle the mug of warmth in silence, who was reveling in the distraction of hot liquid pooling in his throat, and moved back towards the kitchen where his own tea lay waiting. 

Sherlock’s phone rang again, and he pointedly sipped his drink as he ignored it.

Still, though. He wasn’t the only one anymore. John spoke as he checked that he was slicing the bread into relatively straight pieces. ‘No funny business today, Sherlock.’

The pang of pain that shook Sherlock’s skeleton as he reached out for a recent edition of _The Telegraph_ reminded him of John’s medical anxiety. Still, there was no real reason why he just had to roll over and give in. ‘No rest for the wicked, John.’

'Sherlock.’ John’s speech was punctuated with him dropping two slices of bread into the toaster. ‘You can't possibly expect me to let you run around London after some sort of international criminal _now_ , can you?'  
  
'Who said I was asking?'  
  
John just looked at him. Strange, that, how much just a slight crook of his left eyebrow and the minuscule movement of his hairline made him squirm. Not many people could do that. John could, though. Evidently.

'And who said it was an international criminal?' he continued, trying to avoid aggravating John's annoyance. He’d probably done enough of that already. Not that he cared… much.   
  
John pulled away from the open fridge, a pack of butter in one hand while the other rested over the door. He nodded towards Sherlock’s now-quiet phone. ‘Mycroft?'  
  
Ah, Dr John Watson. He always _had_ been surprisingly astute, even if he didn’t believe it himself.  
  
‘And why would I be disposed to take a case from my brother?'  
  
'Are we honestly having a conversation made up entirely of questions?' asked John briskly as the toast popped out of the toaster. He picked it out of the appliance with extreme care, though ended up throwing it roughly onto the breadboard. Too hot—obviously.    
  
'Are we not?'  
  
Sherlock's mouth smirked its way into the genuine half-smile that had always seemed foreign to him until he'd met John. He turned away from the phone in his fingers to watch John in the kitchen; the doctor was smiling, and shaking his head to himself, as he smeared far more butter than necessary onto their toast.

*

John had only been a work an hour when his phone started going—he’d had to shove it in one of his unused desk draws before his next patient had come in. Not that that had helped much, since it clattered around angrily as it vibrated more and more furiously with each incoming message. He could almost feel his blood pressure rising; why couldn’t Sherlock just play the patient for once, and _shut up_? He didn’t reply to any of them; not at first, anyway. There really was no need. All Sherlock was doing was bothering him with mundane complaints, none of which took precedence over the (equally mundane, most of the time) complaints that came from his patients. 

Sherlock was no different from one of his patients, though, and that was why he hadn’t turned his phone off completely. There were a handful of situations where Sherlock might actually need his help… or where Mrs Hudson would have to call him and ask him to come back to Baker Street in order to prevent it from being burnt to the ground.

No, he couldn’t be completely offline. It wasn’t safe for any of them.

So he kept his phone on, and it kept buzzing.

*

Eventually, after three of his five patients so far had given his desk funny looks but not said anything, John checked his phone. 

_27-02-2013 10:03_  
 _All the channels you  
_ _watch are awful. –SH_

How the hell did he know what channels he watched? Then again, even _John_ didn’t really know what channels he watched. He hadn’t been paying that much attention to the television recently. Could Sherlock have guessed why, too? Probably not. That sort of thing had always seemed to go over his head. Just like social conventions, being polite and genuine human decency on a small scale; they were the sorts of things that were too unimportant not to delete.

But John shook his head, and didn’t bother reading any of the other messages that were in his inbox. He’d save them for later, when he wasn’t mooching time off of his employer to chat to his half-mad flatmate. He typed as quickly and quietly as possible, as if he was expecting someone to come crashing through his exam room door at any minute.

_27-02-2013 11:27  
_ _Deep breaths. –JW_

He might as well try and make Sherlock do something to take care of himself. Hell, he’d probably not even got up to get anything to eat. Or he might have—after all, he wasn’t on a case, so there was no reason that digesting would slow him down. John could only dream that it might slow down his thought process to a level where he could actually get some peace. (Not that he minded, really. He was trying to ignore the fact that it felt like his heart might actually jump straight out of ribcage every time he heard another message arrive, and he knew that it would be Sherlock’s name on the screen.)

He’d have to ring Mrs Hudson at lunchtime and get her to make sure Sherlock had eaten something. Preferably something that wasn’t tea. She wouldn’t mind.

He barely had time to put his phone back in its draw when the reply rushed into his inbox. John read it just as he heard his next patient’s footsteps outside the door, and shook his head with a slight smile.

_27-02-2013 11:28  
_ _Make me. –SH_

*

The first time one of his patients commented, it was a teenage boy who’d come in for a sports physical, and he’d got the completely wrong idea.           

'Bit keen, isn't she?’ he said, gesturing vaguely towards the desk as John was peering into his ear canal.

John didn’t correct him. He didn’t say anything, either, and just jotted down the results onto the boy’s school form.

‘I'd run a mile, mate.’

If only he could. Sherlock would find him in a matter of hours; he wished he could’ve said the same for Sherlock. No doubt there had been clues, perhaps clues left only for John. But he hadn’t thought, he’d just seen and he hadn’t observed. He’d just mourned; he’d been blinded with sorrow. Even if he had noticed, he probably wouldn’t have been able to handle it. He wouldn’t have believed it. He would have listened to Ella and convinced himself that he was imagining it.

But this was Sherlock, and anything could happen with Sherlock. He should have known, really. He _should’ve_ known.

Did it matter?

When John thought about it, probably not. Either way, Sherlock was alive, and he was going to be in 221B when John got home. The thought alone was enough to tempt John’s stomach curling into around itself in nervous glee.

*

_27-02-2013 11:43_   
_Do it, Sherlock, or I'll kill  
_ _you properly this time. –JW_

(Was he really making jokes about it already? It felt like it was too soon. Was it? It probably was, but it didn’t stop him from smiling slyly to himself as he pressed send.)

_27-02-2013 11:43_   
_I'd like to see you try. –SH_

(Ha. Sherlock overestimated himself. Had he really forgotten that John was a soldier?)

_27-02-2013 11:44_   
_You’ll kill yourself again at_  
 _this rate. Do you want to get  
_ _pneumonia? –JW_

*

‘D’you need to check that, dear?' asked Mrs Henderson as John’s phone buzzed for the umpteenth time. She must have been able to tell that he was cringing every single time the noise reached their ears. His blood pressure was probably higher than hers—and she only made the appointment to renew a prescription for her severe hypertension.

He really had to talk to Sherlock about this—whether or not he’d be able to convince him to stop was a toss-up. 

John shook his head as he turned back towards her file. 'No, it's just my flatmate.'

'If they're—what are you young’uns calling it these days?— _texting_ , is it?--texting you that much, surely it's important?' she said, pulling her cardigan back across her shoulders as John returned all the equipment to their rightful places.

He suppressed the urge to smirk; of course, with most people, that would be true. After all, most people felt some sort of respect when it came to disturbing their friends while they were at work. Especially since they were just bored, and wanted someone to pay attention to them.

_Appreciation! Applause! At long last, the spotlight. That’s the frailty of genius, John: it needs an audience._

He turned his chair to face her, and pulled put his prescription pad. 'Nah, not with him. He's a bit...' A bit what, exactly? Needy? He never would have classified Sherlock as needy. But, in a way, he was, and he’d just spent the last eight months working alone when he’d been used to having John by his side. He was probably still lonely, and a bit lost. He’d never admit it though, in the same way that he’d never admit that he was dangerously hurt. John cleared his throat as he tore off the paper; it bothered him, a bit, that even now Sherlock occupied most of his thoughts. 'Well, he's a bit poorly at the moment.'

Her gaze softened. ‘Oh, the poor dear! Must be pretty nasty.’

‘A couple broken ribs,’ he said absentmindedly, although he was well aware that he shouldn’t really be mentioning anything about his personal life to patients. ‘He’s not the sitting down type, as you might be able to tell.’           

As if to prove his point, John’s phone rattled around on the cheap fibreboard of the desk drawer. He rolled his eyes and she chuckled. Thank goodness his patients at Lambeth tended to be good-natured; at this point, Sherlock was probably more likely to find sympathy from them than he was from John.

*

John was under orders from Mrs Henderson to tell Sherlock to ‘get well soon’ when he checked his phone again. 

_27-02-2013 11:45_   
_If it means I don't have to sit here  
_ _on my own all day, yes. –SH_

_27-02-2013 11:46  
_ _I'm bored, John. –SH_  

Well, what on earth was he supposed to do about that? Sherlock had been on the run for eight months, supposed to be dead and buried, and now that he had doctor’s orders to stay in and drink as many cups of tea as he could possibly make… he was _bored_?

_27-02-2013 12:47_  
 _Amuse yourself, then.  
_ _Do a breathing experiment. –JW_

Maybe reverse psychology would work.

(It was a long shot. Obviously.)

*

_27-02-2013 12:49_   
_Your attempts at humour  
_ _are futile. I'm still bored. –SH_

_27-02-2013 13:03_  
 _Sherlock, I'm at work! –JW_

_27-02-2013 13:04  
_ _Obviously. –SH_

_27-02-2013 13:05  
_ _Don’t be an idiot. –JW_

*

John didn't get a reply from Sherlock. He did, however, get one from Mycroft while he stopped off at Tesco Express.

_27-02-2013 15:41_  
 _I’d say that congratulations  
_ _are in order. –MH_

John smirked at his phone while he was stood in the checkout line, and wondered what dental procedure Mycroft had been subjected to this time. He took far too much pleasure in hoping that it was another root canal. 

*           

‘Good day?’ asked John as he put down the shopping bags on the counter.

‘No,’ said Sherlock dryly, without looking up from his laptop.

 John shook his head, both slightly disappointed and mildly amused. There was a used plate rather pointedly placed in the sink—Mrs Hudson had done her job, and it looked like Sherlock actually did have enough practical skills to make beans on toast. There was a cup of tea next to the kettle as well, which was still hot; recently made, obviously, and in the same mug that John always used. He glanced back at Sherlock, who was still determinedly intently gazing at the screen. 

Odd, that. Sherlock had never made tea before. All right, maybe he had once or twice, but he’d usually been more concerned with grisly triple murders or multi-million pound thefts.

Still, it was nice of him.


	3. Chapter 3

John wasn’t on hand when Greg Lestrade found out. He was, however, on hand to press a bag of frozen raspberries wrapped in a tea towel to Sherlock’s swollen jaw as a shaken Mrs Hudson made them all cups of tea.

He couldn’t fault Lestrade for punching him.

Sherlock really had asked for it, after all.

*

It was a few days later when Lestrade came to 221B again. He tried to brush the raindrops off the shoulders of his overcoat as he walked into the flat, wiping his feet on the sarcastic welcome mat that John had insisted on after Sherlock had tramped mud over every single available surface.

John had been expecting the visit, but although he had told Sherlock he wasn’t sure if he’d paid him any attention. It was getting to that point, now, too. Four days, and there was nothing but boredom that played on his mind. John could see it happen, even if Sherlock seemingly couldn’t. The man could be surprisingly dense when it came to himself. Still, John hoped that Lestrade could bring them good news; even if he didn’t want Sherlock running around London with broken ribs and a face that looked it’d been dragged through a thorny hedge, there might be something quiet that would catch Sherlock’s eye…

John glanced back into the sitting room. Sherlock didn’t look like he was ready to go back to throwing metaphorical punches in the Met. He was sat in his leather armchair, his knees pulled up to his chest as he leaned heavily on his uninjured side. The doctor was tempted to make Sherlock sit properly, like he’d told him to, but there was a point where words just went in one ear and out the other and they’d passed that approximately thirty-seven hours before. The flickering of the firelight highlighted the still-blossoming bruise on Sherlock’s jaw. He looked… well, he looked almost endearing. Or, really, as endearing as someone could look when they were scowling.

Sherlock pointedly ignored Lestrade’s entrance, even when the detective paused as if to invite a greeting. Where there should have been gentile insults and mildly offensive banter there was nothing but the tinny sound of voices on the television programme that was probably on its hundredth rerun on Dave.

There had been no change in the situation when the forced laughter of the studio audience died away and one of the contestants began speaking, whose voice John soon recognized as the Welsh lilt of Rob Brydon. ‘I once simultaneously worked as both the DJ and the newsreader on local radio, using a different accent for each job.’

‘Lying!’ barked Sherlock before the panelist had even finished reading out the card in front of them. He turned away from the screen in barely-veiled disgust, and seemed to suddenly notice that the inspector had walked into the sitting room. He looked up for a brief moment and nodded tersely. ‘Lestrade.’

He didn’t give Lestrade a chance to reciprocate, and turned back to the television.

So much for human civility, then. Not that there was much of a chance of that any day where Sherlock was concerned.

‘What’s all that about?’ asked Lestrade as he made his way into the kitchen, his gaze now entirely focused on John.

Well, what did he expect?

The doctor couldn’t blame him for not wanting to deal with Sherlock when he was in a mood. Hell, he hardly wanted to deal with him, but there was a nagging part of his brain that kept telling him that he should. Sherlock had played dead, and John knew what that had done to him, even if no one else seemed to have understood the depths of his despair. And who could really blame Sherlock for not being entirely warm towards the man who had decided that the best greeting for one of his not-quite-dead-yet friends was to crash his fist against his jaw?

John tipped a splash of milk into each of the three mugs on the counter. ‘You did punch him.’

‘True, but… not that hard.’

John couldn’t help but grin at that. It was true; most people would never believe him if he tried to convince them that yes, the great consulting detective Sherlock Holmes did occasionally end up shouting at the television like the rest of humanity. Well, he did have to concede that it was often over the so-called imbecilic trivia on panel shows (that John quite enjoyed, when he could hear the dialogue in its entirety) or the outcomes of paternity tests (that John really couldn’t stand) rather than the football or the rugby or anything else remotely normal for a thirty-year-old man.

‘Yeah, I know. Sometimes he gets confused and parks himself in front of the telly instead of his chemistry kit.’ John nodded his head in the direction of something bubbling on a hot plate, and Lestrade hastily removed his weight from the kitchen table.

The doctor chuckled and shook his head as he handed the newcomer a cup of tea. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ said Lestrade as he raised the mug to his lips, peering. ‘Those are labelled chloroform and sulphuric acid. Not doing anything untoward, are we, boys?’

John grinned. ‘A moderately adept sixth-former could manage this particular experiment. It’s completely within the law, no matter how odd it makes the flat smell. Thanks for that, by the way, Sherlock…’

The third man’s voice travelled, disembodied, from the sitting room. Obviously, Sherlock wasn’t in the mood for observing the generally accepted societal norms for receiving guests, and hadn’t bothered to shift his arse of that armchair of his. ‘If you wanted a pleasant experience, you should’ve let me get the cyanide solution out.’

When Lestrade looked alarmed, John smirked as he picked up the third mug that was behind him. ‘It smells like almonds if you heat it,’ he said as he pushed past the detective inspector. He almost couldn’t believe that he was going to ferry Sherlock’s food and drink back and forth from the kitchen himself and not let the bloody idiot starve until he’d get it himself, but he indulged himself. He’d only been back for a few days, anyway.

‘I’ll… keep that in mind?’ Lestrade sounded befuddled, and John wasn’t about to explain why Sherlock knew that he liked the smell of almonds—not that he really knew how he knew, either.

‘Best do,’ called John over his shoulder. ‘Never get your hopes up for cake if you smell marzipan in this flat.’

Behind him, Lestrade laughed. ‘I generally don’t associate your flat with food that’s uncontaminated.’

‘Probably a good idea,’ said John as he held out the hot mug to Sherlock. The detective waved a hand in John’s general direction as he keenly watched the next contestant try to read out their card with a straight face, but John sighed heavily and refused to move.

‘Be nice, Sherlock,’ he murmured with a quirked smile as the consulting detective’s eyes swiveled around to stare disdainfully at the intrusion. He nudged the mug closer to Sherlock’s face. ‘Look, tea.’

‘Mmmhm.’

‘Still sulking?’ John prompted after a moment’s pause, and Sherlock removed the steaming mug from his hands.

‘No.’

‘Oh, right…’ said John, disbelieving. ‘Your jaw will recover.’

Sherlock snorted, and slurped at his tea.

When John returned to his own mug in the kitchen, Lestrade was frowning in Sherlock’s direction. ‘Pleasant.’

‘Utter charmer, I know,’ was the sarcastic response as John leant on the counter. He glanced towards the visitor, and nodded towards Lestrade’s delivery. There wasn’t much use in beating around the bush as to why Lestrade was there; after all, he’d thrown a punch and, sooner or later, John and Sherlock were going to walk back into Scotland Yard. The only question was when and why. ‘What do you have for him, then?’

‘Not much, I’m afraid. The superintendent isn’t exactly thrilled that we want to bring him back on. Everything’s got to go by the book.’ Lestrade paused, and plucked a small amount of paper from one of the files he carried under his arm. Handing it to John, he continued. ‘You’re both going to need background checks, security clearance, even sodding laminated identification cards—’

John glanced perfunctorily at the papers, and frowned. ‘Mycroft can deal with this.’

Lestrade shook his head. ‘Not this time. The less meddling with records, the better.’

As much as John wanted to argue, it was probably for the best. After all, Sherlock had been suspected of fabricating cases that took up the majority of the Met’s time and he’d managed to punch the Superintendent across the nose. They weren’t exactly model civilians. He stared unblinkingly at the paperwork in his hand before placing it beside the bubbling beaker. ‘Right,’ he said, folding his arms in front of him. ‘How long, then?’

The detective inspector smiled, his mouth curling into a subtly cheeky grin. ‘Long enough for him to become homicidal?’

‘Brilliant. I’ll have to hide the cyanide!’ said John, laughing. Lestrade joined him, and when they quietened down, John glanced in Sherlock’s direction. ‘No, really. He’s in no fit state to chase criminals. Even you can’t have not noticed.’

Lestrade rolled his eyes. ‘Thanks for that, John.’

‘You’re a good copper, Greg.’

‘Yeah, but we need him,’ said Lestrade, jerking his head backwards towards the sitting room.

‘And you’ll have him,’ reassured John. He paused, and then he continued with a slight smile. ‘Eventually.’

Lestrade tutted, and took another gulp of tea from the mug in his hand.

‘What’s this, then?’ prompted John as he tapped on the files that Lestrade had placed on the counter.

‘Oh, that,’ he started, putting down the mug on the kitchen table. ‘I was wondering when you’d ask about them. Thought I’d bring by some files for Sherlock to leaf through. All low-key, should be simple enough for him. Just to keep the walls intact.’

John opened the top file in his hands and skimmed the information before him. ‘He’ll know what you’re doing.’

Lestrade scoffed. ‘Of course he will. Doesn’t mean he won’t appreciate the distraction.’

John could only hope that he was right. Even though Sherlock hadn’t even been back for a week, there were definite signs that Sherlock was coming to the end of his rope. You couldn’t just order the man to sit still and stay in without experiencing some fallout. Or, well, fallout akin to nuclear war—eventually. John glanced at Lestrade over the top of a file, and sighed as he closed it.

‘On your head be it,’ he said, handing the folders back to the police officer.

‘It’s not as if I’m proposing a game of Cleudo.’ Lestrade heaved the pule of files into his arms, and winked at John as he turned away from the army doctor. John smiled and shook his head before emptying the mug that was in his hand into the sink. He really had to stop letting his tea get cold.

‘All right, then, Sherlock? Fancy a look at some case files?’ said Lestrade dryly as he moved into the living room.

Sherlock grunted, not removing his gaze from the glaring brightness of the television as Lestrade eased himself into John’s armchair. There was an expectant pause as Lestrade dropped the pile of files on the side table, and turned to look at Sherlock. ‘I believe the phrase you’re looking for is ‘Yes, please, that sounds lovely.’’

Sherlock’s eyes flashed away from the screen and latched onto Lestrade’s face, then flickered to the files and back again. Even as he sat with a small snarl and a cold countenance, John could tell from the kitchen that he was tempted… sorely tempted.

‘You overestimate me, Lestrade,’ said Sherlock with a small curl of his lip as he turned back towards the television. ‘I think you’ll find that my brother can attest to the fact that my capacity for polite conversation has not been improved.’

‘I wouldn’t doubt it.’

The reply came quickly and briskly, and Sherlock didn’t have a chance to respond before Lestrade whisked one of the files from the table and held it aloft. John could almost see the internal struggle; Sherlock wanted something to do, something more fulfilling than the inconsequential guessing of truth on a panel program. Still, it was Lestrade, and he was trying to humour him, which was, in itself, moderately insulting. But… cases. Cases that he’d be on for all of three seconds, obviously, but… puzzles.

Challenges.

(Little challenges.)

(But, still. Challenges!)

Sherlock whipped the file out of Lestrade’s hand and opened it, his eyes raking over all the information that lay before him. Lestrade turned to seek out John’s gaze with raised eyebrows that screamed, I told you so!

‘The au pair,’ barked Sherlock as he suddenly snapped the file shut and chucked it on the floor in front of him. ‘Easy.’

John smirked, and Lestrade readily offered Sherlock the next file.

A few more moments of silence passed, and then: ‘The uncle,’ before the sound of another file meeting the floor. ‘Do try harder, Inspector.’

*

John had staggered in from work to find Sherlock pacing around the living room, his violin seemingly glued to his shoulder. He didn’t get as much of a shrug of acknowledgement for his good-natured ‘hello,’ as he shut the door behind him. Sherlock was far too absorbed in his own mind for that.

It was almost violent, the way he was playing; his face was twisted and contemptuous, as if the instrument was betraying his mastery of the music. John had just walked past him, and through to the kitchen, as if the pots and pans and perpetually growing washing up pile would somehow distract him from noise.

Because that’s what it was: noise, battering his mind and ears. Sherlock didn’t seem to be trying to complete the tune, and he played the same one over and over again. John knew that it must have had a more symphonic name, like concerto or sonata or chamber music, but he couldn’t be arsed to use it. The detective kept stopping, kept scratching to a halt at different points as the incidental silence seemed to be full to the brink with frustration. Whether or not that had anything to do with the music itself was debatable. As John unbuttoned his coat and hung it over the back of a chair, he could have sworn that the tune itself was familiar. He must have heard Sherlock play it before, or remembered it from somewhere else (Radio 3, maybe?) and pushed it on his mental image of Sherlock when he couldn’t bear to be in the flat alone.

Except he had been alone, and the flat had been silent. Now he wasn’t, and for some reason, it was a bit of a shock. Hell, Sherlock was a bit of a shock, or if he was going for the whole hog, everything had been a bit of a shock.

Taking into account the calendar, it had only been a week. Taking into account Sherlock’s frustration, it had been years. John knew that Sherlock knew, and he was painfully aware of the passage of days. The passage of nights was more problematic, and with every brutal awakening from mental images of Sherlock’s suicide, he was convinced that he’d dreamt it all and it really was still that first Tuesday, before Josie and before Mr Leatherbarrow and before breakfast. Except it wasn’t, and he could hear Sherlock scuffling about in the flat. He could hear the past at the same time he could hear the present, and it was messing with his head. Sherlock wasn’t supposed to be alive—but he was, and it scared the shit out of him.

Not that he could tell Sherlock—and it wasn’t like the detective was likely to care either. He didn’t seem to be bothered by any of it. John would have expected him to be a little uncomfortable, or even a little guilty. Most normal people would have been. But no, he remembered, Sherlock would have been comfortable anywhere where he could climb into his own head—which was virtually anywhere in the entire world, and whether or not John was there was irrelevant.

‘Sherlock?’ he called as he walked through the kitchen, picking up the numerous mugs that peppered the dark counters. Obviously, the detective was doing something with his time, then—just as long as there wasn’t some sort of strange tea experiment going on that John didn’t know about. He wouldn’t have been too thrilled to hear that Sherlock had contaminated their tea supply. ‘Sherlock, what are you doing?’

Sherlock didn’t stop. He didn’t even turn around, and he just stared at the flattened cushions of the sofa.

John looked at him, and willed him to turn around. He knew that he wouldn’t, but it didn’t stop him trying. Sherlock had been getting worse all week, going from complaining at John’s insistence that he took some time off and shouting at Jeremy Kyle to saying nothing at all. That was dangerous, and it put John on edge. He tried to ignore it, and push forward. John had tried to carry on when Sherlock hadn’t. After all, Sherlock wasn’t about to help himself. He’d languish away in self-imposed moodiness for months if he had the chance, but John didn’t want to live with that.

So he waited, and listened for the next screeching halt. It would have been better if Sherlock shouted, or swore, or expressed some sort of vocal aggravation, but he didn’t. All it was was silence, a deathly quiet that engulfed more and more of him every time it appeared.

‘What’re you playing?’

There was no answer, followed by the sound of a bow connecting with strings.

John sighed. There were a thousand other questions that he wanted to ask. Why was he playing? Had he been playing when he was away? Was there a reason for this sudden orchestral inclination? Had he noticed that John had kept his violin, even though he couldn’t play and Sherlock was dead? Did he have a favourite composition? Had he been composing? Did he think of him when he was somewhere far too far away? Did he love him?

No, that last one was beside the point. Sherlock didn’t love anyone, and definitely not in the way John loved him. And it wasn’t as if Sherlock needed to know. It was irrelevant, and it would have been irrelevant even if he hadn’t been dead. There were plenty of other things that John had to the detective's gravestone that he'd never dare say to the man himself. One that had stuck with him was 'I thought of you today, and it pissed me off.' Then again, 'I loved you' had come up as well, and that was definitely something to be avoided in all future conversations.

The violin stopped again, and John wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d heard it smash against the wall… but it didn’t, and Sherlock treaded slowly back towards the other side of the room. He still hadn’t spared a glance for John.

John could have punched him. Didn’t he realise that his reappearance wasn’t all roses and sunshine?

The doctor almost didn’t realise that he’d left the kitchen behind him as he kept his eyes on Sherlock. The bloody bastard didn’t even realise that he was being a bastard; there was no reason for him to go like this. There never was, but one would have thought that after being supposedly dead for eight months and putting your best friend through hell, you could have been a bit more… well, human. A bit more responsive, even, or maybe even a little bit more attentive. Though if he could ever call Sherlock attentive, John would eat that bloody hat.

He caught Sherlock’s free shoulder as the taller man tore the bow away from the strings, and hauled the detective around to face him. ‘Do you think this is easy for me, Sherlock?’

Sherlock looked at him blankly, although John could see the cogs in his head working. Not because he was slow, or stupid, but because there was a depth to his expression that only Sherlock could conjure into existence. He’d never seen anyone else look like that when they were thinking. Never before had anyone else looked so present and so effervescent when they’d been lost in thought. John raised an eyebrow as Sherlock lowered the instrument from his shoulder, and the taller man cocked his head in return.

So that was how they were going to do this: wordlessly? Fucking hell.

‘Do you?’ prompted John as he lowered his own hand, disconnecting himself from his flatmate. ‘Look, as far as I'm concerned, you were dead. You were dead for eight months. The fact that you actually weren't doesn't negate the fact that I thought I'd buried you, and the fact that you're back doesn't erase the fact that you were gone.’

He could tell that Sherlock didn’t quite understand what on earth this had to do with his violin.

John wasn’t really sure either, and it sure as hell wasn’t logical, but it made sense somewhere.

‘These sorts of things were difficult enough before you threw yourself off a building, you idiot. I know you’re bored. I know that you need something to do. But you also need to recover, and you can’t just go straight back to being the great detective Sherlock Holmes, crime solver extraordinaire.’

Sherlock did that thing that he always used to do when he picked up his phone, swaying on his hips as if he was some sort of predatory creature about to pounce. In any other situation John would have admired him, and even though he wanted Sherlock to admit that he was being difficult, he still wanted to be able to wrap himself around the detective and make him forget anything else about the world.

He’d tried to stop himself thinking that way, but it didn’t always work.

‘There’s nothing to do, John! I’m—’

‘We all get bored, Sherlock! Everyone does, and everyone deals with it much better than you do. I can only put up with so much, and you’ve been like this for days! Can’t you see that it’s difficult for me as well, to have you back but not doing anything?’

Sherlock sneered, his face uncharacteristically cruel for a split second. ‘It’s good to know that I’m such a nuisance, then. I’ll make a note of it.’

‘Don’t be stupid, you know that’s not what I’m saying,’ snapped John, and he was right. That wasn’t the problem; the problem was that Sherlock was unhappy, he was bored and he was uncomfortable, and John would have done anything to make that go away. ‘You’re in no state to chase criminals around London, and neither am I, at the moment.’

Sherlock looked at him pointedly, as if to say that there was no physical problem that would have prevented the doctor from running a marathon if he wanted. After all, he walked up and down the city’s streets every day, and most definitely didn’t have three cracked ribs.

John rolled his eyes. ‘You can't just call me your only friend and a conductor of light and expect me to be the same John Watson again. This doesn't work like that. I would know, Sherlock. I've seen my friends die more than once. You weren’t the first.’

John didn’t need to add that Sherlock probably wouldn’t be the last, either. He wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if he’d be the one to bury the detective for a second time.

There was a tense silence, and John looked at the floor as he broke it. ‘Is that why you jumped, Sherlock? Were you bored?’

'I didn't jump,’ he said, his voice low and caustic.

'Semantics. Stop it; does it really matter to anyone else, Sherlock? Jumped off a building, walked off a building... hell, took a swan dive off a building, even! You still ended up dead.'

'I wasn't dead.'

God, was he really going to argue that point? Really?

John shook his head as he suppressed the urge to take Sherlock by the shoulders and shake him until reason slotted into his brain. 'You were dead to me. You were dead to everyone except yourself.'

Sherlock looked guilty at that, but John ignored him and eased down onto the cushions of his armchair. ‘You’ve still not answered my question.’

That would have been the moment where Sherlock should have apologized, crouched down and said that he was sorry. But he didn’t, and just raised his violin to his shoulder.

John closed his eyes as the tune started up again, and he wondered if he’d ever be able to get Sherlock to see what he’d done to him.  
  
*  
  
John’s heart sunk as soon as he saw the state of the fridge.

It wasn’t as if there were any heads next to the foil-covered plate of leftover chicken or disembodied fingers stuck in the butter. No, the problem was that there wasn’t any leftover chicken or butter… or any other type of foodstuff, for that matter. He couldn’t really understand how that had happened; sure, they’d been on the receiving end of several of Mrs Hudson’s stews and fresh reminders that she wasn’t their housekeeper, but John hadn’t thought that he’d need to pop to the shops for another couple of days.

Christ. He hadn’t even had time to take his coat off and he was being sent out again. At least it was by his stomach this time, and not some bizarre mission for Sherlock’s amusement. He’d had enough covert people-watching to last him a lifetime.

‘Sherlock,’ he called over his shoulder as he let the door slam shut. ‘What have you been doing with all our food?’

Sherlock’s drawling voice floated from the sitting room, where he had draped himself over the entire length of the sofa and was balancing his overused laptop on his lap. ‘Ingesting and digesting, I suspect.’

‘Don’t be facetious. I can’t remember the last time you poked your head in the fridge for anything other than to check on whatever’s festering in the Flora Spreadable.’

The fridge hummed loudly, as if in agreement.

‘I am perfectly capable—’ Sherlock started, while John unsuccessfully smothered a snort of disbelief, ‘—of preparing food for myself.’

‘You could’ve fooled me.’

‘Of course I can.’

John ignored him, but smiled as he checked his pockets for his phone. ‘Last time you used the toaster, I had to fiddle with the fuse box before the Internet came back on.’

‘Not my fault.’

‘Maybe not, but the mess you made waiting for me to get home was definitely your doing.’

Sherlock’s slow smile didn’t even suggest an inch of regret. The smirk that played its way onto Johns otherwise controlled face betrayed the fact that he really didn’t mind.

‘Need anything in particular?’

He always asked, even though Sherlock didn’t seem to notice what he brought back. John had always got the impression that it was Mycroft who was the fussy one; Sherlock may have preferences, but not ones that bothered him too much. Perhaps favourites were too ordinary for him. In any case, John found himself placing things in the basket that he reckoned Sherlock would like (or enjoy mocking—the end reaction was the same either way.)

John waited, and watched the back of Sherlock’s head as he stood with half of his body already out the door. He had just come to the conclusion that Sherlock had deemed this part of the conversation to be irrelevant and had stopped paying attention when the detective shifted his hips and pulled a small folded piece of paper out of his back pocket. He offered it to the air around his head, an approximation of where John would have been standing the last time he spoke, and waited. John took it from his fingers with a sigh; he should have known not to ask Sherlock if he had any errands to run or supplies to refill. What was supposed to be a quick trip to Tesco’s for a carton of milk and a packet of crisps was shaping up to be something much more complicated.

‘What’s this, then?’ John was almost afraid to ask.

‘Supplies,’ was Sherlock’s reply as he steepled his hands under his chin, shifting his gaze towards the ceiling.

‘Right, supplies, yeah…’ began John, and he almost made it out of the door before coming back. ‘You know I can’t just carry a head back under my arm, right?’ He paused, but just as Sherlock took in a breath to respond, he cut in again. ‘And, no, Sherlock, I couldn’t just use a carrier bag.’

Sherlock smiled then, a full smile on a face that was otherwise closed to the world. John could only watch him until Sherlock broke the silence.

‘Even you have to have noticed that my previously well-stocked lab is now barren? It’s your fault, you cleared it out—though I can’t really blame you for that, the experiments would have been ruined after six weeks of inattention—but I do need to set up some of my experiments again.’ He paused, and fixed one upside-down eye on John’s. ‘Unless you want me to start shooting at the wall again.’

‘All right, all right, I get the point,’ said John as he held his hands aloft in defeat, although he did have a feeling that Sherlock’s idea of basic supplies was a bit off the mark. Still, having Sherlock brewing chemicals in the kitchen or microwaving eyeballs was better than having him lolling around in an annoyed slump.

Sherlock lowered his eyes to his laptop again, and for a moment, John missed their icy warmth. ‘Go to St Barts; I get my equipment there, and Molly can get the materials on that list.’

‘I’ve noticed. Do they know you’ve been keeping one of their best microscopes under the sink?’

‘That was you.’

‘Nothing’s stopping you from moving it.’

‘Maybe I would if I had a chance to use it.’ Sherlock glanced at him again, and jerked his hands about in a dismissive gesture. ‘Off you trot.’

John should have been annoyed, but he wasn’t. Instead, he folded the paper with Sherlock’s untidy scrawl between his fingers, and made his way out of 221B. It was only when he was glancing up and down the street to see if there were any taxis about that he thought to check exactly what Sherlock had written down. He glanced at the list perfunctorily, and when his brain processed it said, he almost turned on his heel and marched straight back into the flat. These were decidedly not what he’d call ‘bits and bobs.’

God. Now he definitely wasn’t going to be able to get the Tube back.

*

John had been looking forward to a decent cup of tea after suffering through the stewed concoction he’d been subject to at work. He had hoped to make it to a month without body parts in the fridge as well, but he supposed he couldn’t really complain.

The sun was shining through the thin layer of late afternoon cloud, and the days were slowly lengthening. John decided to walk down to St Bartholomew’s Hospital. It wouldn’t hurt him to get a bit more exercise, and he’d have to juggle the milk, cheese, and a few body parts on the way back.

He couldn’t help up notice the slight turn of the season. He’d missed the joy of every transition after Sherlock’s fall—even the change of years seemed to have given him the slip. Everything had been measured in months: two months since, three months since, four months since… whether it was 2011 or 2012 was irrelevant. But now, as he walked with a bounce in his step down High Holborn, everything jumped out at once. The people who pushed past him weren’t as bundled up, and very few held their coats as closely around them as they’d seemed to for the past few moths. For once, John was glad to hear the passersby making plans for the evening with their phones pressed to their eyes; drinks and nibbles didn’t feel quite as hateful anymore, not when he had Sherlock to go home to.

It was a bit odd, that, thought. Sherlock never actually listened to him, and now seemed as if it should be the perfect chance for him to go tearing around. After all, he’d spent eight months having to pretend to be dead, so why wouldn’t he want to go out and stretch his legs on the streets of the city that was virtually a part of his psyche? Maybe his ribs were still worse than Sherlock was letting on; John had had to discontinue his daily examinations once Sherlock had threatened to break even more bones to add some interest to what must have been tedious proceedings. Then again, it wasn’t like John really understood what had happened. Maybe Sherlock wasn’t safe if he wandered around. Maybe he had more injuries that John didn’t know about. Maybe—just maybe—he was tired of being ‘on’ all the time. Still, John wasn’t going to question why he was getting his own way, even if the price was a few fingers in a few tubs of butter.

A smile had crept onto his face somewhere between Holborn Circus and Lindsey Street, but as he passed Smithfield Market a deep-seated uneasiness that he’d tried very much to ignore settled low in his stomach. John had taken a roundabout way because of his reluctance to go. He’d only agreed because Sherlock had asked him to, not because he was comfortable with it. Somewhere in his brain wondered if Sherlock would but comfortable walking into Barts again, but… he was close—too close, even. He’d distinctly avoided coming anywhere near St Barts while Sherlock had been dead. He had to see the place often enough in his head, and it felt real enough them. Why subject himself to a living nightmare when there was a large enough backlog of unconscious ones to last him another few years? It had just been one of those things that he hadn’t been able to force himself to do, like moving out of Baker Street or letting Mycroft take Sherlock’s suits. He hadn’t been ready. He still wasn’t ready, really, but he screwed his eyes shut and turned onto that street…

He still half expected the pavement to be stained red.

John knew full well what he was being ridiculous. It was highly unlikely that the blood would have stained the cement in the first place, but expecting it to be there after eight months of rain and foot traffic and ice was idiotic. Still, it didn’t stop him from doing it.

As soon as John realized that his feet had halted their steady forward movement, he stretched himself to his full height and stiffened his back. He was a soldier. He was a doctor--he wasn’t going to let a memory stop him in his tracks, even if it was Sherlock’s body that was swimming before his eyes. Setting his jaw, he marched towards the large front doors that would remove him from the offending street. John refused to look up, or even glance around; there was still a residual fear that his mind would conjure up Sherlock’s bloodied body out of roosting magpies.

God, he really was head over heels, wasn’t he?

‘You feeling all right, love?’ asked a voice from John’s left.

He turned his head to meet the peering gaze of a kindly old woman, who was perched on one of the otherwise bare benches. John gave her a small smile that he intended to be reassuring as he walked on, but he had a creeping suspicion that he just seemed a little bit deranged. Hell, he felt a bit deranged. It was only Sherlock that could make someone associate flashbacks to an apparent suicide with the realization of affection. If that wasn’t mad, then what was?

He had to use all his weight to shift the front door, but once he made it through into the sanitized reception, he took a deep breath of relief. There was, of course, no panic and no terror and no Sherlock on a stretcher--just the peaceful hum of the busy daily proceedings of hospital staff. John rubbed a hand over his closed eyes, and willed his heartbeat to steady out. What had Sherlock done to him? He was a doctor, for God’s sake, trained in the very hospital he’d just been so hesitant to enter.

The bastard.

But Sherlock was his bastard—and very much alive and kicking.

John approached the receptionist’s desk, folding Sherlock’s handwritten note between his fingers.

‘How can I help you?’ asked the receptionist with a warm smile as John leant against the surface between them.

‘I’m here to see a Ms Molly Hooper.’

John half expected her to shoot him a funny look--after all, he had just asked to see a morgue attendant and as if he’d had an appointment with his doctor. But no, she just nodded briskly and leafed through a drawer of files.

‘You’re welcome to go straight through. She said you’d know where to go.’

‘Oh, right. Okay,’ said John as he rolled back on his heels and glanced towards a pair of doors to the side of the desk.

He found himself glancing backwards as he made his way through the doorway that lead to the rest of the hospital. Had she just said that Molly had been expecting him? Well, not in so many words, obviously, but she’d implied it. Insinuated it. Molly Hooper, who could hardly remember his name at first because she’d been so enamored with Sherlock. Had Sherlock…? He could have called ahead, he supposed as he passed a group of chattering medical students in the hallway, but Sherlock wouldn’t have bothered. Anyway, John didn’t think that Sherlock even had Molly’s phone number. They’d never been that close, no matter how much Molly tried.

Then again, there had to be a certain level of intimacy that came with the inherently illegal practice of obtaining severed heads for private use.

Molly was scribbling something onto her clipboard when John entered the room. She looked up as the door clicked shut behind him, and gave him that same sad smile that she’d worn when she’d been round to the flat. Almost immediately, he wished she’d stop doing it. It felt too close to those first few months, too far away from what his life was now instead of then.

‘Hello,’ he said, and Molly replied in kind as she clasped the clipboard to her chest.

There seemed to be nothing else to say, and as if all there was to know was already known. Knowledge was a prison—or, at the very least, the prison of casual language. And yet… The paper in John’s pocket felt heavy, weighing on his mind as though it meant something other than the words written on it. It was bore on his mind as if it dragged his mood down to the depths it had only recently escaped.

‘You look well, John,’ Molly said as she made her way around the slab, putting her papers down near the tap and walking towards where John stood.

Yeah, well. He should have looked better. His best friend wasn’t dead anymore. Sherlock was lounging in their flat, complaining and playing the violin into the wee hours of the morning. If he didn’t look better than he had when Sherlock was dead, then he’d have to book himself a diagnostic physical to find out why.

But… did she know? John had almost forgotten. Could Molly have found out, had someone told her? Mrs Hudson knew, Mycroft knew (he always knew), Lestrade knew (and therefore his team knew). So had anyone told Molly? It would be just like Sherlock to turn back to using Molly to get his illegal body parts without actually telling her he was alive beforehand. But… she’d been expecting him.

She’d been expecting him.

Mycroft was all right. He’d suspected as much. Mycroft was in on everything; he’d probably be in John’s sandwiches if he wasn’t careful. But Molly? He’d never thought… for a moment… well, he hadn’t thought, obviously, but that particular voice in his head was Sherlock’s and oh… oh.

She’d known. She’d known all along.

Molly was looking at him then, eyes narrowed as she observed the outward manifestation of his thoughts. John was vaguely aware that he was making no attempt to halt the train of thought, the rolling boil of misplaced anger that was uncoiling in his chest. It was a bit too late for that.

Sherlock hadn’t told him. He’d turned to everyone else, but not him. Him! The one he’d dragged everywhere to chase killers and considered his partner. In work, colleagues, whatever the term for what they were was. He’d cut him out of the picture and he’d been forgotten.

John couldn’t help it. He’d been happy, with Sherlock in the next room. He hadn’t wanted to know—hadn’t needed to know; he’d just thought Sherlock had blazed off on his own again, leaving everyone and their dog in the residual dust cloud. But no, apparently that was just him. He’d been the one left behind, not him and everyone else. Him, and he thought Sherlock wouldn’t have wanted that to happen. (Sometimes, John had ridiculous notions. Apparently that had been one of them.)

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, fists balling in frustration against the absent detective, and he hauled his gaze away from the mismatched tiles. Molly had bent down to return some instrument to its proper place; she wasn’t looking at him. Maybe that made it easier to speak. John didn’t even know why he’d said it, for a moment.

‘So, you know, then?’

Her face appeared then, lips slightly parted in stunned silence. John didn’t move—didn’t speak—barely even breathed, but Molly recovered quickly enough. ‘Well, yes,’ she began, standing up and wiping her hands on the front of her coat. ‘Sherlock rung—’

John frowned. ‘No, Molly. You knew.’

He didn’t need to say anything else—the emphasis on tense was enough. His expression would have been enough of a suggestion to what his weary voice did not convey. John took no pleasure in watching Molly’s face fall, settling in an expression that suggested that he’d just found out that she’d opened Pandora’s box. Then again, in a way, she had.

‘Look, John, it’s a long story and I’m not sure I’m the one to tell you.’ Molly paused when John didn’t make any move to respond—and how could he? His mind was still reeling—she pursed her lips and continued. ‘I really don’t know anything worth telling.’

‘Well, you sure as hell know more than me. I’d take anything. I would have done anything.’

And yet, Sherlock hadn’t trusted him to—that was the reason, wasn’t it? Or was he just not on the top of the ‘useful’ list, seeing as that was apparently how Sherlock ranked his friends. John knew that he was being unfair, at least to Molly. She’d loved Sherlock, too, and she wouldn’t have let any of his cries for help go unnoticed. She was like John, in that way, a little representation of himself in their willingness to help.

John realised he was walking forward as he heard his shoes click against the tiles, and he almost stumbled as he tripped over the foot of a nearby chair that he hadn’t noticed before. He leant on one of the side desks as he heaved himself back to his full height, thinking. Molly waited. (They were both rather good at that, too).

Footsteps echoed in the adjacent hallway as they stood together in silence. John flexed his fingers against the wood surface (it was no substitute for Sherlock’s jaw); Molly’s fingers fiddled with the end of her ponytail. They did not look at one another, as if mutual recognition with ignite some sort of rage between them.

‘How—’ John began, forcing himself to look away from the metal filing tray and into Molly’s wide eyes. ‘Just, how?’

‘I… I don’t really know, John, I wasn’t…’

John looked away again, a disbelieving sound slotting in his throat. Of course. Sherlock always held all the cards, and probably an extra pack for safekeeping as well. Bastard.

John grabbed at straws in his mind, tearing around all his knowledge and memories of the detective to try and fing an explanation, a reason for what it had all happened at all, a place where he still fit.

‘God, if wasn’t for that bloody Irene Adler—’

‘Oh, so you knew her too?’

‘Fuck Irene Adler!’

Molly looked at her feet, shocked into silence. John knew that he was always the last man that anyone expected to go on a mad shouting spree, but how many people had had their best friends jump from a building in front of them and show up at their workplace eight months later? He knew he was using it as an excuse, as an explanation for any of his more strange or outlandish behaviour, but it was fucking true. One could call it escapism, maybe, but also the truth.

John pushed his hands into his coat pockets, and shifted his gaze away from the morgue attendant. He glanced at the body on the slab that lay behind them, and suddenly felt as if this was the entirely wrong location for their conversation. ‘Look, d’you fancy a coffee? Tea? Anything?’ he asked, his voice very different from the one that had shouted out his anger mere moments before.

Molly met his eyes and shook her head, sadly. She obviously knew that he didn’t really want to be stood in the middle of a morgue, even if he’d done it plenty of times before. There was something more intimate about this conversation. It was pulsating with life, with a sort of passion that was almost an insult to the dead. ‘It’s best what’s said is kept in his lab, John. It can’t be common knowledge.’

Oh. Of course. John should’ve known that. Now he just felt stupid. (He’d been doing a lot of that, lately).

‘Right,’ he said, trailing off uncomfortably as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

‘Hold on a minute, I’ll get you a cup of tea.’

Tea. Something about tea sounded very welcome to John, even if the prospect of actually having to drink it turned his stomach. He must have nodded his head, even if he didn’t remember doing it, for Molly laid a gentle hand on his shoulder as she passed him on her way out of the morgue. It didn’t take her long to return, yet John jumped as the door clattered open.

‘You were saying…’ she prompted, offering him a polystyrene cup of milky tea. He took it with a weak smile, and sipped at it out of politeness. Even as the liquid pooled in his palate and dripped down his throat, his mouth felt uncomfortably dry.

‘How did he do it?’

John didn’t know why he was asking again. It was the only thing that ran through his mind that made any sort of coherent sense.

‘He’s a genius—’

‘Doesn’t mean he’s right.’

‘No… no, it doesn’t.’ Molly held John’s gaze that time. ‘He’s a bastard, but not a heartless bastard.’

John just looked at her. For once, she had spoken without his prompting, and for once he felt like she’d lost her patience with him. She placed her hands on her hips as she continued with her chin held high and eyes shining in defiance. ‘I would know, after all.’

What do you mean, gay? We’re together.

John cleared his throat; the incident was all too clear in his mind, but he was ashamed to admit even to himself that it was for an entirely different reason. ‘He said it was kinder that way.’

‘Yeah, well, he was being a right tosser, and he always has been.’ Molly smiled to herself as the words left her mouth, as if she’d won a small internal victory. ‘But he was right. It probably was better that way. I mean, look where Jim got us all, in the end.’

John nodded, and sipped at his tea just so he could occupy his hands. He wasn’t sure where he was going with this conversation, whether he was angry with Sherlock or Molly or Mycroft or himself or even bloody Lestrade, although he’d made it plain that he’d had no idea Sherlock wasn’t actually dead. John just didn’t know what to think anymore, about himself or his friends.

‘He's been protecting you since the day you two met. I think you forget, John, that I knew Sherlock years before you came into the picture. Granted, it's a much prettier picture with you in it, but…’ The doctor made to turn and march towards the door, but Molly raised her voice. ‘No, John—it's important. He was always protecting you. The rest of us as well, but chiefly you.’

‘What if I don’t want protecting?’ said John, squaring his shoulders as he put the cup down on one of the sterile tables. ‘I’m no innocent.’

He wasn’t; he really wasn’t. Molly shot him a glance with her hands in the pockets of her white coat that told him that she knew that, too, just like everyone else did. He may have seemed inoffensive, in his chunky knits and easy smile, but he’d seen and done things that most people couldn’t stomach. And he’d incriminated himself more than once for Sherlock’s sake, breaking and entering and antisocial behavioural orders and shooting to kill.

What the hell made this case any different?

‘Look, Molly, I don’t want to seem rude but I doubt that you’re in any position to understand—’

‘Dr Watson,’ she said suddenly, interrupting him with more force than her slim frame betrayed. ‘I most certainly am. You must be as blind as he is.’ When he looked at her with incredulity, she sighed and shook her head. ‘It killed him, you know. On some level, one he doesn’t think exists.’

John scoffed. He would have doubted that in any other situation, and the current one only seemed to make him more predisposed to do so.

‘He may not have been dead, John, but he died.’

‘What does that matter—’ he began, shouting before his brain realized that he shouldn’t be, ‘—when he can’t understand that when he jumped he took a part of me with him?’

If there had been crickets in the hospital, they would have heard them. They probably could have heard a whispered conversation in the staff room two floors away through that silence if they listened hard enough. John had never come that close to actually admitting what Sherlock had meant to him—did mean to him—before. He’d only made it more real by speaking it out loud to someone who wasn’t a headstone. They looked at each other, scrutinizing, both biting back words that didn’t seem to be enough.

‘Look, Molly, I’m sorry but I just—can’t, anymore. I guess there comes a point where you just have to stop trying, because it hurts too much to hold on anymore.’

If Molly made any move to stop him from going, he didn’t notice as he dropped Sherlock’s note into the wastepaper basket and made his way back to the doors he’d entered through. Just as he laid his hand on the handle, he turned back to Molly and smiled one of his bitter, broken smiles. ‘There’s no point caring about someone who couldn’t care less.’

'You can say whatever you want about Sherlock, John, but you can never ever say that he doesn't care.'

Molly had raised her voice to tell John that, to scold him into realising what an idiot he was rapidly turning into, but the sound that reverberated in his ears was not of words but of the slamming of a door.


	4. Chapter 4

John slammed the door shut behind him, ignoring all of Mrs Hudson’s well-placed warnings not to. He was too enraged now to worry about the doorframes. 'Sherlock!’ he called from the staircase, taking two steps at a time. ‘You knew, you _fucking_ knew! Beforehand, before—you had to, you knew!'

If John had been thinking straight—or, indeed, thinking at all—then he would have been able to rationalize the fact that yes, of _course_ Sherlock knew ahead of time. If he hadn’t, the whole trick of not actually dying was much more impressive than it already was. So of course he knew, otherwise how would he have been able to plan his survival? But John _wasn’t_ thinking straight; he didn’t quite know why he was shouting, or why it meant so much to him that Sherlock had known what he would have to do. Was it because the detective hadn’t turned to him for help? Hell, he’d turned to everyone _but_ him. And what did that say about the two of them? He didn’t want to think about it, but he had to. So what did it mean? And why did it feel like Sherlock had pushed him off that roof? Why did it feel like Sherlock had done everything in his power to cut him out of the picture?

No wonder his therapist had said he had trust issues. Anyone who ran around with Sherlock fucking Holmes ended up with enough trust issues for a hundred men.

He crashed through the landing, and barrelled through the door. ‘ _Sherlock_ , I swear—’

‘John,’ said Sherlock as a manner of greeting, standing stiffly and uncomfortably. John ignored all the warning signs.

‘You complete and utter _twat_ —’ he spat at the detective, whose guarded face should have told him everything he needed to know. There had always been a distinct change in atmosphere whenever _dear brother_ Mycroft arrived; it was palpable all the way from the front door. Even Mrs Hudson had mentioned the absolute animosity that seemed to seep throughout the entire building. John wasn’t quite sure why Sherlock and Mycroft didn’t get along as well as they used to, before the fall, but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter; it wasn’t as if they’d ever been that close.

Not like John and Sherlock had been, anyway.

But now, when John had finally flipped his lid and let go of the need to be civil, he missed all the signs. He could normally tell when Sherlock was trying to tell him something, even when he had no idea what the message was.

'Good afternoon, Dr Watson,' said the familiar, falsely calm voice, the unsolicited noise floating up from what had always traditionally been John’s chair. It’d always been his chair, even when the flat had only had one occupant… and now Mycroft had the gall to sit in it and speak to him as if they all hadn’t pulled the wool over his eyes and fucked him over?

He didn’t hesitate—he didn’t even look at the older Holmes brother. 'Get out, Mycroft. Out. Get the hell out.'

‘ _Excuse_ me?’

‘Get the _fuck_ out.’

‘ _John_!’ hissed Sherlock, completely ignoring the increasingly angry look on his brother’s face and keeping his gaze fixed intently on John’s.

‘And _you_!’ shouted John, wheeling around and pointing a finger at his flatmate. ‘I have half a mind to tell you to get out, as well. For good, this time.’

For a split second, true fear flickered over Sherlock’s face, but John was too incensed to notice. He hadn’t been looking for it, either. As far as he knew, Sherlock didn’t feel fear. Oh, there had been that incident in Dartmoor, but that wasn’t fear in the way that the majority of the population thought about it. That had been self-doubt—fear of not being as brilliant as he thought he was. Not a fear of losing a friend, or leaving behind a home.

‘John, I must ask that you calm down…’ continued Mycroft, who had apparently wrangled his offended feelings into submission and corralled them into a blank mask of false politeness—like he always did. John reckoned he’d never seen the man be emotive; was it even possible? Did being a blank slate run in their fucking family? This was the funeral all over again, with an overwhelming urge to punch the older Holmes brother across the face, pointedly _not_ avoiding the nose and teeth. Did anything ever change? Everything should have been different, should have changed when Sherlock had turned up at the surgery. Everything should have been back to normal, pre-jumping off buildings normal, not this strange limbo after limbo, the purgatory of purgatories…

'This is between me, and him. Not you, Mycroft!’ shouted John, looking the now-standing Mycroft squarely in the face. ‘Not Anthea and her bloody Blackberry, either, and not even the bloody British government. I don’t care why you’re here; I don’t give a shit about what you’re pestering him about now. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t just drop in whenever you felt like it. So fuck off and clear out for once. You might be able to manipulate every other situation and every other person, _including_ your brother, but it's not going to work this time. You can't manipulate away _grief_ or _sorrow_ , Mycroft. Don’t even try it with me.'

A tense silence fell over the three of them. John and Sherlock stared at one another, and Mycroft glanced between the two of them as if they’d sprouted tails. It wasn’t often that Captain John Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers lost his rag, but when he did, it was always over Sherlock. So it shouldn’t have been that surprising, really.

‘Go,’ murmured Sherlock, his head only slightly inclined to look at his brother but his eyes twisting to meet the older Holmes’ own. ‘Do it, Mycroft.’

‘ _Sherlock_!’

‘Come back tomorrow. If you _absolutely_ must.’ The detective didn’t have to move a muscle to make his condescending eye-roll apparent in his speech.

And, as if by some sort of well-timed magic, Mycroft’s mobile phone rang, the tinny tune warbling from the depths of one of his (many, many) pockets. He fished out the apparatus from his jacket pocket, and looked at the screen, eyes narrowed as they dashed around the numbers and letters displayed there. Was it worth it? What it important enough for him to leave with this argument unresolved? John knew that Mycroft cared, in a perfunctory sort of way; after all, what had been the reason for him attempting to get John to spy on his brother? _I worry about him… constantly._ And he did, otherwise why would he have helped him fabricate his own death and disappear from the one person who did care about him?

But worrying and caring were different things, and Mycroft’s concern for Sherlock breached only his filial duty and his usefulness. John… well, John had thanked his lucky stars each and every day that Sherlock had made it back to the flat with nothing more than a few scrapes. Mycroft would have made sure a seriously injured Sherlock got the best private room in the best hospital with the best doctors, but John would have held his hands and never left his bedside.

So, of course, the phone call was more important. They always would be. The shrill ringtone shot through the silence with all the presence of a sharp, stabbing knife, and with one of his withering looks, Mycroft turned towards the door.

John almost gave a sigh of relief as the door closed behind the older Holmes brother, but all too quickly the realization that Sherlock was still standing in front of him brought his reality crashing down around his head again.

‘When, Sherlock? When did you know?’

John was surprised to hear his voice remaining steady, and crammed his hands into his coat pockets. No one needed to know that he was shaking.

The reply was almost too quiet to hear, and came a moment too late. Sherlock looked away, breaking his unremitting gaze and sending John’s stomach plummeting to the soles of his shoes. ‘Baskerville.’

Evidently, Sherlock did have an (underused) sense of shame—yet, it still it wasn’t enough.

John smiled, but the toothy grin was bitter and dishonest. ‘Brilliant, that. Good deduction—good _deception_ , as well. Funnily enough,’ he paused, but only to add a sort of sarcastic dramatic effect. ‘Sally was right. In a way. Wasn’t she?’

Sherlock pursed his lips, and turned away from John’s piercing gaze—the one that he hardly ever used, even on someone as fiercely aggravating as Sherlock.

He didn’t turn to face John before he spoke. 'One of us had to die, John, and it was better for it to be me.’

Oh, so that was it. Sherlock had to do it, because no one else could. _No, I’m Sherlock Holmes and I always work alone because no one else can compete with my massive intellect._ Of course, John Watson was useless according to Sherlock Holmes, a handy companion to have around and bounce ideas off of—better than the skull, not quite as good as another Sherlock himself.

‘Was it, Sherlock? _Was it really?_ Better?’ said John, his voice dangerously quiet as he dragged Sherlock around by his shoulder to face him. ‘You really don’t have any idea. You have no idea what we’ve been through—no idea what you put _me_ through, Sherlock. You made me _watch_ , I _watched_ and _heard_ you fall off St Barts and crunch on the pavement!’

Sherlock said nothing.

‘The sky was falling, and all I could do was smile. Except I couldn’t even do _that_ , Sherlock. Do you understand? I suppose you can’t, really, as muscles aren’t supposed to fail people on account of emotion.’ He paused, and looked at Sherlock’s blank face with unsettling stillness. ‘Yours tend not to, after all,’ he added, bitter afterthoughts punctuating his speech.

‘None of it was real! It was a _trick_ , John—’ Sherlock spoke as he moved, gesturing with tense palms as he walked around John—who found himself more and more rooted to the spot. He’d thought that confronting Sherlock would have taken a weight off of his shoulders, not add more on.

‘No, Sherlock! I tried to explain this to you but it never seems to get through that bloody thick skull of yours! It was real. It was real for eight months. _You_ were dead, _we_ buried you, _I_ wrote a eulogy for you. How the hell was that not fucking real?’

‘You had to be real.’

‘What?’

‘ _You_ had to be real. You were the key. You had to believe I was dead, or no one would.’

‘Doesn’t really include me though, does it, Sherlock? It serves your purpose, yeah, but mine?’

Did he even have a purpose? John didn’t know. He sure as hell didn’t have one when he met Sherlock. He hadn’t felt as if he’d had one when Sherlock had died. But was there anything inbetween, really? Had he had a purpose then, or had Sherlock’s own personal brand of magic just distracted him from the many glaring holes in his life?

In the end, it didn’t even matter. He’d thrown himself at Moriarty to save Sherlock, he’d nodded him on when he threatened to blow them all to pieces after the bloody bastard’s change of heart, and he’d do it again. He’d do it over and over and over again as long as he didn’t have to go to Sherlock’s funeral ever, _ever_ again.

‘I would have died for you in a heartbeat, do you understand me? I’ve killed for you, and it’s only one degree of separation apart.’

Sherlock seemed to flinch, and perhaps that was actually his sudden stillness, but John knew that there was never anything involuntary about the detective’s movement. Barely imperceptible changes in his proprioception were always the result of his own calculated interaction with the world around him. It didn’t take him long to snap back into form, not much longer than he’d taken to switch off the tears when Mrs Monkford had had enough with him.

‘It wouldn’t have been very helpful, John. What about Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade, hmm? What about his children? Would they have wanted to die for me?’

‘When have you ever given a fuck about his _children_?’ hissed John, although he knew that wasn’t the question that he should have been asking. That wasn’t the issue; the Lestrade family was entirely irrelevant to this particular argument. Sherlock could manipulate with the best of them. He could probably even best his brother.

John shook his head, and took a step towards the taller man. Then he took a step back—and two steps forward. God, he needed to reign himself in. He didn’t care anymore, this—whatever the fuck it was—obviously wasn’t working and there was no way that Sherlock could ever understand what went on in his head.

Sherlock could be still without being unsettling. He could be motionless in every muscle and still be buzzing with energy, the pure essence of thought process. But now, standing opposite John in the rapidly declining light of their living room, he was still. So, so deathly still. Sherlock would turn his head, as if to face him, but his eyes weren't there. Oh, they were there all right, in his head and working perfectly, but they never settled on John. Even when Sherlock's face was pointing straight at him.

He was doing that, too, now. _God_.

'I fucking _loved_ you, Sherlock. Does that mean anything to you?'

There. He’d said it.

Fuck.

_He’d said it._

He hadn’t planned on doing that.

He suddenly found that he couldn’t say anything else. His mouth had gone so dry that it seemed impossible to form any sort of sound at all, but at the same time, his head was swirling with too many thoughts and too many things to say. He just looked at Sherlock, breath coming heavily through his nose and desperately trying to control his anger—though who he was angry with was debatable. Was it Sherlock, really? Or was it himself? There was no difference anymore; they’d been two sides of the same coin, two halves separated by bodies.

And he’d just revealed that he’d loved Sherlock. You didn’t just say that to anyone. He’d never planned on letting Sherlock know. There was no reason to let him know. Everything would be changed, everything would be different once he knew. Oh, well, he’d probably suspected, or deduced it out of him on several occasions; that was different. It was infinitely easy to ignore the truth if it was unspoken. Even Sherlock—who made a living in finding and exposing the truth—could be economical with it when it came to his friends.

He tried to breathe deeply, trying hard not to come apart. He’d come close enough so many times and never stepped over that line. Still, he couldn’t quite swallow his embarrassment, and instead shut his eyes to the world around him. He didn’t want to watch Sherlock’s brain work anymore.

‘You’ve never once said you were sorry, Sherlock. Not _once_ ,’ he said, eyes still closed. He didn’t even know if Sherlock was still listening. It was perfectly likely that he’d just walked away. ‘With anyone else, that’d be the first thing out of their mouths, and probably the only thing on their mind for months. But you think that you’re so fucking special, and that you can walk back into this life—my life, our life, whatever the _fuck_ it was—whenever you want? Not fucking likely. Not anymore.’

John didn’t waste any time. He didn’t want to give Sherlock the satisfaction of knowing that he’d been the reason for everything, for every decision in John’s life for the past eighteen months. The strange thing was that John had felt closer to Sherlock when he’d been dead, when he’d been separate and intimate all at once. Now that he was standing in the sitting room, eyes dashing from one side to another as he watched John turn and walk through the doorway, he was different.

‘John, wait—’

‘ _No_ , Sherlock,’ he said, whirling around on his heels to face his flatmate. He paused, and shook his head wretchedly. ‘I’ve waited long enough for you.’

And with that, he slammed the door behind him and walked out into damp, rainy London.

*

Going out had been fucking useless. It had been the only thing to do, but it hadn’t helped. Everyone seemed to be scowling as he walked down Euston Road, his shoulders hunched against the wind and the rain, but all the people that he passed seemed to be going somewhere with some sort of purpose. He felt terribly aimless, as if he didn’t quite know what he’d done or why. Why had he stormed out of the flat? Why, exactly? Because he’d told Sherlock he loved him? Because they’d argued? Because he really wanted to leave the flat for good? There was no way of telling. At least the chilled air against which he braced himself was a change from the heated anger that he had left behind in Baker Street. There was a large emptiness where his anger had been, a large void that constantly asked him why he’d had to do it. Why’d he have to pick a fight with Mycroft? Why’d he have to tell Sherlock that he loved him? Why’d he have to go and fuck everything up?

John knew he was being stupid. He knew that however comfortable it was, or however overjoyed he was that Sherlock wasn’t actually dead, it couldn’t have lasted. All the information, every last bit, would have come out eventually, and they couldn’t live like that. It wasn’t fair. It was almost as unfair as Mycroft and Molly knowing that Sherlock was alive when John didn’t.

 _God_ , he felt petty.

And he wanted to go home.

He should have known, really, that Mycroft’s car would have followed him as far as Regent’s Park, and even then it’d parked outside the entrance. He should have known that he’d glance at every security camera only to imagine Mycroft’s face watching him from some office in Westminster. He should have known that it wasn’t that easy to get Sherlock out of his head—after all, he’d tried for eight months and it hadn’t worked—plus, it was fucking _freezing_.

So John found himself back on Baker Street and back at the front door of 221B before long, even though he still didn’t want to be there. He wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted to come back at all, but he had no other choice. Where else was he supposed to go at half past midnight on a Tuesday? It wasn’t like Sarah was still in the picture, or any of the other women who Sherlock hadn’t remembered. But then again, it wasn’t as if John had remembered them, either. It was always Sherlock who had haunted him.

It hadn’t been that much of a problem for him to admit to himself that he was in love with Sherlock. Sure, it had taken him a while, and he’d never meant to say it, but he just was. He loved him, and he missed Sherlock more than any girl who’d ever stayed over in his rooms. Was he gay? No, not really, but he wasn’t entirely straight either. Did it matter? No. Not really. To other people, maybe, but not to him. John Watson was John Watson and Sherlock was Sherlock. They weren’t exactly the greatest representation of human normality. But they were them, and they’d been happy.

Or at least, he’d thought they’d been happy. The past tense was still divided between Sherlock’s first life and his second; where exactly had they been happy, before or after the pseudo-suicide? Could they still be happy now, after John’s bitter exclamation of his feelings? It wasn’t as if he’d said it as if he was happy about it; thinking back, John reckoned he’d sounded angry, bitter… resentful, even. As if he _blamed_ Sherlock.

Ha! Like Sherlock knew how to make someone fall in love with him. He couldn’t have cared any less—obviously—and that was the dilemma. The fact that Sherlock was a man wasn’t as big of a problem as the fact that Sherlock just didn’t ‘ _do_ ’ love.

The stone in John’s stomach seemed to get gradually heavier as he pushed his key into the door, and made his way upstairs. The flat was silent, and strangely still; even John could tell that the door hadn’t been touched since he’d gone out. He’d probably have to do a few little repairs for Mrs Hudson; all his door-slamming would have undoubtedly damaged the hinges. It was almost comforting to think about something so domestic.

It didn’t last for long, though. At least, not long enough.

Sherlock was sat in his postmodern leather armchair, with his steepled hands tucked under his chin. His eyes seemed to be staring at nothing, pointed at the chair opposite but unfocused. He hadn’t even changed, and was still wearing one of those damn suits that seemed to never come off. He was just sat there, thinking, like he always did. Nothing had changed. Nothing that John had said had made any sort of lingering impression.

_You… machine._

A small noise of disgust growled its way out of John’s constricted throat. Sherlock’s ears almost pricked as he turned sharply to face his flatmate, his attention now fully on John. It was disconcerting, and although he had started to remove his coat, John ceased any movement except for the rise and fall of his chest. There was a fragile stability in the air, and it was as if the first one of them to move would be the one to break everything they’d created. Even so, John couldn’t help but wonder… what was he, exactly, to Sherlock? If he was going by the information available to him at that precise moment, then he’d say that he was nothing more than a piece of evidence dropped on the pavement, an object of temporary intense interest that would eventually bore Sherlock.

What was even more disconcerting was seeing Sherlock lurch out of his seat and barrel through the living room, knocking over several boxes of notes in his haste to get within reach. The doctor in John cringed, knowing that Sherlock would have been hurting himself moving like that, and he felt a jolt of regret when he realized that he’d been in intense pain all day anyway. Then the anger came roaring back to his mind, and he remembered that Sherlock had left him in the lurch and given him eight _months_ of grief.

Before John could even come to terms with what was happening, Sherlock’s large, warm hands were on either side of his head, the palms enveloping his icy ears and the fingertips playing at the edge of his hairline. John didn’t know where to look, what to do, whether or not to keep breathing… nothing made sense, there was no real reason for Sherlock to be acting this way. There was no panic here, no sudden change in the situation without any explanation.

After all, there had been a very loud, very coarse explanation a few hours earlier.

So why was Sherlock looking at him like that? Why were his large, searching eyes raking over John’s face, John’s eyes, John’s set, angry mouth? Why wasn’t he saying anything?

Why wasn’t he _saying_ anything?

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said John as he placed his hands squarely against the lapels of Sherlock’s suit jacket. ‘Sherlock, stop. Stop this. Leave me be!’

The detective didn’t utter a word, and kept his hands where he’d placed them.

They stayed like this for a while. John didn’t quite know what to do with himself or any of his limbs, and Sherlock didn’t seem like he was about to be shifted very easily, so there they remained.

It wasn’t very long, however, before John began to get fed up. There was no reason for him to be there, manhandled by Sherlock into being scrutinized, and he was tired, and there were still raindrops dripping down the back of his neck and he wanted to get into bed and just not be conscious for a while. Why couldn’t Sherlock ever just shout? Why couldn’t he do anything except sit there and _think_ when all John needed was for him to say something? Why did the bloody bastard have to seem so blasé about the entire thing?

‘Sherlock, get _off_!’ he shouted as he pushed at the detective’s chest. It was surprisingly easy to push Sherlock away, and he staggered backwards into the furniture, but John didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore, obviously, because he wasn’t important enough to the great Sherlock Holmes for him to let him know what was going on.

John felt another rush of feeling, one that told him to run back to any place that he called home, but he didn’t know where it was anymore. He suddenly felt more alone in 221B than he’d ever felt in that lonely East London bedsit.

‘I don’t even know what I’m doing here anymore,’ muttered John, to himself more than to the stunned and panting Sherlock.

John spun on his heel, and marched back through the doorway through which he came in. He wasn’t about to stay there with Sherlock like this, and he was going to bed. At least there, he’d get some peace. Not from his own mind—no, that rarely shut up. He wouldn’t mind if it did something decent, but it seemed to just want to torture him in situations like this. Just like Sherlock did, apparently. The bastard had the cheek to look scandalized after he’d pushed him away, but what on earth was he supposed to do? Let him stand there for hours, just watching him?

Well, John didn’t want to watch _him_ anymore. He wanted to be somewhere else.

But where…?

Harry. She’d have to do—even if she was back on the booze.

The sense of purpose that he’d found for himself seemed to give him a boost of energy, or a mandate to work towards a goal. He didn’t feel quite so aimless now that he needed to pack a bag. John knew that it was an artificial cure, and that once he left Baker Street it would feel like he’d been shot _again_ , but it didn’t matter. He would have done anything to stop his throat from constricting so tightly and to move his heartbeat away from his windpipe and back to his chest.

He went through the motions as if he was fine, as if his entire world wasn’t crumbling in on itself for a second time. He brushed his teeth and splashed his face with the cool winter water, shoving the toothbrush and towels into a kit bag he’d always used when he went to see his sister at Christmas. He stripped himself of his clothes and stepped into a ratty pair of pyjamas, shoving anything and everything into the bag. He didn’t care; he just needed to get out. There wasn’t anything left for him there, no matter how much his chest ached to think it.

But as frantically as he began, he stopped; he soon realized that he wasn’t in the mood to be folding shirts and pairing up socks.

Instead, he marched over to the side of his bed and sat down heavily, his phone in his hands and his contact list illuminated. Harry’s name was right at the bottom, below Sherlock and Mycroft and Mrs Hudson and Greg. It took him a moment to get there, and he paused when the system highlighted Sherlock’s name and he had to swallow down his unhappiness. But as soon as Harry’s name and number popped up on the screen, he took a deep breath and began to formulate his message in his head.

He hadn’t got much further than ‘Hiya, Harry,’ when Sherlock walked in.

The bloody git had never really got the hang of knocking.

They didn’t say anything at first, although John could tell that Sherlock had noticed everything—and he wasn’t about to waste time in coming up with theories as to why or how. Anyone else wouldn’t have been able to think straight in this sort of situation; John was sure that he couldn’t.

Then again, he didn’t have to.

‘I don’t know how to do this, John,’ said the detective, uncomfortable and cringing.

John barked out a humourless laugh. It was unnecessary, and cruel, but at least it was honest. After all, _Sherlock Holmes_ not knowing how to do something? John didn’t think he’d heard such bullshit in his life. Even if Sherlock wasn’t used to emotions, or feelings, whatever you wanted to call them, he knew them. He knew how to play them, for fuck’s sake, so he might be able to use that fucking brain of his to work out some plan of action. The man faked his own death, and managed to stay dead for _eight months_ so surely he could figure out how to have a row with his best friend.

Was that even what he was, anymore? Was he Sherlock’s best friend? Did he even _have_ friends? He’d thought that he did, he’d reckoned that Sherlock had some of the most loyal, loving friends in the world but… there was something missing. There was something missing in the way Sherlock was with him, something that the Sherlock in John’s memories seemed to be much better at. Perhaps that was it, perhaps John had romanticised and remembered a man that didn’t exist. Everything that had kept him going, everything that he’d thought meant something was just another calculated part of Sherlock’s plan to outsmart Moriarty.

_I think he wants to be distracted._

_I hope you’ll be very happy together._

Moriarty. Jim motherfucking Moriarty. Maybe he and Sherlock _were_ made for each other. John sure as hell wasn’t, no matter how much he wanted to be or how much he thought they were. They worked together, they seemed to fit so simply and easily, but that was because they were different—so very different. And because they were different, they’d always end up back in the same situation, with John storming out of the apartment and Sherlock sat alone, lost in his own mind.

It wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t even _sane_.

But it had worked. It had worked for eighteen months, and they’d been all right. He’d thought they’d been all right, anyway, until Sherlock had flung himself off a roof, and then there had been nothing.

‘John?’

He tore his eyes away from the bright screen of his phone, and turned back to where Sherlock had been standing. The detective had made his way further into the room, and seemed disproportionately out of place, sort of too big and too long and too gangling all at once. He was rolling his phone in-between his hands, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with them. It was like the times when Sherlock had been desperate for a case, desperate to have something with which to occupy his mind; desperation didn’t suit him. John felt, as he always did, an inexplicable need to fix it for him. If he was trying to be logical, he’d just say that it was better for them _all_ in the long run if Sherlock wasn’t so agitated as to need to resort to impromptu shooting practice just to amuse himself… but if he was being honest, he’d have to admit that it was because he knew, he _understood_ , that Sherlock’s mind was a burden on his body, an insatiable part of him that placed an incredible toll on the rest.

He would’ve thought that Sherlock would have liked the puzzle, though. Quick, let’s find out what’s got John so worked up. See if we can beat our last record. What was it, twelve seconds?

John had never felt quite so bitter about his own thoughts in his entire life.

‘Sherlock, what are we _doing_?’ he asked, running a hand over his face in dismay.

The answer was not entirely forthcoming. ‘I—I don’t know.’

‘You always know,’ snapped John as he stared at the name on his phone. His eyes were floating in and out of focus, the letters morphing into constellations of black and while pixels and back into words again. He may have been close to tears, but he didn’t know if that was due to the fact that Sherlock had just eased into sitting beside him or because he hadn’t blinked in a while.

He was hyperaware of Sherlock’s presence; he could feel every shuddering, shallow breath. ‘Not—not with you.’

John looked at him with intense disbelief in his eyes. He knew he was lying. Sherlock could read him like a book. He was the benchmark for whether or not the man’s skills of observations were working. John sighed, resigned to the fact that he really never knew what on earth Sherlock was doing, and turned to rest his forehead against Sherlock’s shoulder. The detective didn’t flinch or move away, so he kept his head there.

‘I suppose we’ve buggered this up, then,’ said John, quietly.

Sherlock didn’t reply, and ambulance sirens blazed down the road outside.

John eventually lifted his forehead from Sherlock's shoulder, and lifted his gaze in order to see the detective's features in the dim, yellow light cast by his bedside lamp. The bruises that had shocked John so much when they’d first clapped eyes on each other were fading to an uncomfortable, sore-looking yellow, and the cut on Sherlock’s lip had reached the stage characterized by shiny, new skin. The swollen cheekbone, the very one that John had punched so many moons ago, wasn’t angry and red as it had been. Still cut, though, and far from healed.

Sherlock pushed his forehead gently against John's and took a rattling breath. 'I—I’m sorry.'

He almost couldn't believe it. Any of it—that Sherlock was alive, that Sherlock was sorry, that Sherlock was sat with him on his manky duvet and was blatantly trying to tell him that yes, of course it'd meant something to him. Exactly what it meant would probably always be a mystery to both of them, but something was all they ever needed. They both knew now, which was different from both of them suspecting. The fact that they’d cared about each other must have been apparent since the day they met; this moment was the one in which they admitted it to each other. Admitting it to themselves hadn’t been a problem—they’d both already done that.

Sherlock kept talking, his voice low and private, as if (for once) silence bothered him. 'I—I didn't think—'

He faltered, but John smiled and let one of his hands nestle along Sherlock's neck. The detective's hard and lively pulse beat heavily under his palm, while John let his thumb stroke gently over Sherlock's jaw. 'Of course you didn't,’ he said, a sad smile pushing through the residual adrenaline that was still coursing through his veins. ‘You never do.’

It was true. Sherlock never thought about this bit. Sure, he could plan and execute his own death, he could figure out how to walk into Baskerville without being suspected, he could decipher a code made up of an ancient Chinese script and the London A-Z but he didn’t have a fucking _clue_ about what all of that meant to the people around him. It didn’t factor into his deductions, it didn’t matter in the heat of the moment. It mattered, of course, in the rest of the world—in the real world—but that was a realm in which Sherlock really was out of his depth.

John pulled his hand away from the compelling rhythm of Sherlock’s heartbeat and let it fall into his lap, drawing away from Sherlock’s tense contact. He reached for his phone, and closed the blank text message that was meant for his sister.

‘Are you going to sleep tonight?’ asked John. He didn’t turn to look at Sherlock but pressed their shoulders together instead. He didn’t even balk at the idea that the question could be construed as an invitation. He didn’t know if he meant it as one, but he didn’t think he’d mind if Sherlock took it that way.

But, judging by Sherlock’s previous track record on almost-invitations and innuendo, he wasn’t going to. John couldn’t help but feel a tiny little bit disappointed. He turned back to face his companion, who was glancing at the time displayed on his phone.

‘No,’ said Sherlock, pensively. ‘I don’t think so.’

John sighed. He was tempted to make Sherlock rest, to push him into staying in bed for a good nine hours, because he _needed_ it. Sherlock wasn’t well; he was injured and needed time off. It was a pity his mind didn’t seem willing to _give_ him any time off.

‘See you in the morning, then,’ said John, punctuating his sentence with a yawn. He could feel Sherlock turn to look at him, and he rotated his own head to meet the detective’s gaze. It was questioning, almost worried; how could John have gone from the intense anger of half an hour ago to this brazen acceptance of Sherlock’s still-annoying and still-infuriating quirks? John didn’t know either, but he was convinced that it didn’t matter. He hadn’t really wanted to go in the first place, had he? No. Never. Not even when he _should_ have gone.

He wasn’t going anywhere, and that’s the only thing that Sherlock needed to know.

‘Go on. Go and watch your mould.’

*

_I’m a doctor, let me come through. Let me come through, please…_

_No, he’s my friend—he’s my friend. Please._

_Please… let me just…_

‘God, no…’ John muttered, half-asleep. He could still feel that ice-cold terror seeping through his veins; even if it hadn’t been real, then or now, it still hurt. The image of bloodied and broken Sherlock seemed to be burned onto his eyelids; he couldn’t escape it, not even when Sherlock was sat in the next room.

Except… John opened his eyes properly, stretching uncomfortably against the pillows and duvet around him. Yes, there really was a silhouette at the door. That wasn’t just an oddly shaped dressing gown. No, most definitely not. If it was, it’d be lumpier, not as thin or lithe as the body that was leaning against the wooden doorframe.

Had he really just lay in bed, contemplating what the silhouette of a dressing gown would look like? Well, at least now he definitely knew that he needed to start getting more sleep.

‘Sherlock?’ he called, his voice soft and gravelly with disuse. He must have been asleep for a decent amount of time, then. John flexed his hand, and pushed it against the mattress, pulling himself into a sitting position. ‘What—what’s the matter?’

The figure at the door made no move to come further inside, seemingly oscillating between knocking on the door and fleeing to the landing, but he did flinch away from John’s voice as if he hadn’t been expecting him to wake up. Or, maybe, seeing as John knew that he wasn’t exactly a placid sleeper, he’d known that he’d woken up but hadn’t expected him to notice anything about his environment. Had he _really_ forgotten that John was a soldier? Maybe he didn’t know exactly what being a soldier made a civilian like; he hadn’t realized that John hadn’t needed to use his imagination to imagine his last moments, after all.

Then again, Sherlock didn’t really need to either, anymore.

‘Sherlock,’ John said, again, and the name was no longer a question. It was just a statement, a quiet invitation and an acknowledgement. He reached over to the light on his bedside table, making sure to avoid the glass of water and his phone, and turned it on. The immediate area was bathed in a weak yellow light; John squinted against it for a moment, his sleep-ridden eyes unused to the brightness. ‘Come on, Sherlock. It’s not as if I’m going to be getting back to sleep any time soon.’

It was true, he wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep. He’d never got the hang of it, waking up in fear and then falling back into the realm that had brought it to him. So he fixed Sherlock’s shadow with a stern gaze, and the detective heaved himself away from the wall and stepped further into the room. He seemed hesitant, unsure; it was strange. Sherlock was never unsure. John wouldn’t have believed his own interpretation of Sherlock’s body language if he hadn’t seen the same sort of thing in the surgery, when he’d barged back into life.

John threw back the covers and pushed himself to his feet. The floor was cool under his feet, but he didn’t mind. It offered him some proper recollection of life now, of life that (for once) didn’t align perfectly with his nightmares. Sherlock had stopped, halting somewhere in the ether between the doorway and the bed frame, and John padded over to meet him.

‘What is it, then?’ he asked as he came to a stop in front of his taller flatmate.

Sherlock cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘I’m—I can’t—I’m not breathing properly, John,’ he said quietly—almost intimately.

John didn’t even hesitate, and laid a hand on Sherlock’s chest over where he knew the ribs were giving him pain. He didn’t need to think about it anymore, he knew, he’d memorized that bruising as soon as he’d seen it. As the flesh of his hand connected with the soft fabric of Sherlock’s well-loved pyjama top, Sherlock flinched away from his touch. John frowned—it must have been three or four weeks since he’d first got the injury, so the reaction to a gentle graze of a hand shouldn’t have been that acute. It would have still been painful, and tender, yes, but not that much.

‘D’you mind?’ he asked, and Sherlock shook his head.

John lifted the hem of Sherlock’s top, and couldn’t hide the sharp intake of breath that escaped from his deeply controlled breathing. The bruising that had slowly been decreasing and gradually looking less severe was inflamed and angry; the otherwise unharmed skin that had bordered the purple bruising was pink and swollen, as if it’d been re-injured, or damaged during the healing process…

Oh, _God_. Shit. What the fuck had he done?

‘Jesus _Christ_ , Sherlock,’ he murmured, eyes still coursing over the injured area, trying to find if there was any evidence to suggest that John’s outburst had damaged Sherlock’s internal organs. He didn’t think so—he hadn’t pushed him that hard—but still. If there was _any_ chance…

John pressed his fingers to the injury. ‘Sherlock—God, _Sherlock_ , I’m sorry, I didn’t—’ he babbled, looking up in a desperate attempt to meet the detective’s eyes. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered as Sherlock met his gaze.

‘John,’ said Sherlock as the doctor laid his palm over the bruised area. Only Sherlock could work that much emotion into the pronouncement of a name—even if it was only because he had no other way of expressing sentiment. What he was trying to say was agonizingly obvious: it didn’t matter, he didn’t care, he’d never really cared about his body except when it slowed him down. But it was slowing him down now, it was hurting him like very few other things could hurt physical existence… still, he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind that John had aggravated it; he didn’t mind that it was John’s fault.

It didn’t matter, with them. Why would it? They were Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.

John’s warm hand met with Sherlock’s chilled skin as he gently applied pressure on different areas of the injury. He ignored Sherlock’s sharp intakes of breath, as he knew Sherlock wanted him to do; instead, he was more interested on making sure that he hadn’t set Sherlock’s recovery back too far.

‘Have you been icing this?’ he asked briskly. It was time to get down to business, no matter how much he just wanted to envelop Sherlock in his arms and not let go.

Sherlock nodded.

‘Right. Okay… right…’ said John as he pulled his hand away and let Sherlock’s top fall back to cover the bruising. ‘Any more tablets?’

‘None since nine.’

John glanced at the digital clock at the side of his bed. Three in the morning. Right.

‘Sit down, then,’ he said, grasping Sherlock’s shoulder and pushing him towards the bed. Sherlock didn’t fight him. John had doubted that he would. There was no reason to, after all, although that had never stopped him from being awkward before. No, now he was tired, he was in pain, he was vulnerable. He needed someone. It was a good thing that John needed him, too. ‘Don’t move, Sherlock.’

John turned briskly, and walked with sobriety towards the stairs that led to the rest of the flat. He needed to keep his mind on the task at hand, following through with the things that Sherlock needed—painkillers, fluids, rest. He needed to stop the waves of nausea that made his mouth go dry. He couldn’t just sit there and not blame himself for the welt on Sherlock’s chest. He had to fix it.

‘Here,’ he said as he came back, holding out the pair of pills in one hand and a glass of water in the other. He would have expected Sherlock to shoot him a look of disdain, or to roll his eyes and turn away, but he didn’t. He was strangely meek, unnervingly tired; but then again, broken ribs would do that to anyone, and especially to the type of person who always refused to sit still and to rest. Sherlock had never been one for quiet days in, had he?

John watched carefully as Sherlock swallowed the tablets, keeping a close eye on the rise and fall of Sherlock’s chest. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale… it was too shallow, and obviously giving him pain even after medication and compresses. There was really nothing else any of them could do. That was the problem with rib injuries; there was little treatment, only pain management—and with a patient like Sherlock, pain management was more of a problem than it should have been. If the bloody man would only _sit_ down and _stay_ sat down…

The doctor pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and focusing on his own breathing. What the hell was he supposed to do? He’d just told Sherlock he loved him (which he did, and probably always would—on some level), he’d almost left Baker Street (it was true, there were half-packed bags still slumped against a chest of drawers), he’d severely insulted Mycroft (he’d have punched him, but he didn’t really _need_ another ASBO), and he’d given Mrs Hudson one hell of a fright (he shouldn’t have given her that thunderous look on the way out.) And now, Sherlock was sat on the empty side of his bed, distressed and forlorn.

If he thought about it, there really was only one thing to do. After all, Sherlock never came to anyone for help unless there was a good reason to do so.

‘Go on then,’ said John, pulling back the duvet from the bed and plumping his unused pillow with a fist.

Sherlock looked at him blankly.

John rolled his eyes. ‘Honestly, Sherlock,’ he said, laying a hand on the detective’s shoulder. ‘Get in. I’m not letting you wander off again tonight.’ Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, but John raised his voice and spoke over him. ‘Ah—stop right there! No, you’re staying here, and lying on those ribs, because you need to bloody _breathe_!’

He knew he was getting short with him again, no matter how unnecessary it was. He didn’t really care at this point. Why couldn’t Sherlock just listen? He’d bloody well jumped off a building in front of him! Even if he wouldn’t listen to Mycroft, or to Lestrade, or to Mrs Hudson or to Molly, couldn’t he just listen to _him_? For fucking _once_?

‘John—’

‘Just—just do it.’

And, to John’s surprise, Sherlock did.

He couldn’t stop himself from babbling, unable to stop the flow of words that somehow fell from his mouth in hushed tones as Sherlock folded himself into bed. ‘Stay on the injured ribs, it’ll hurt at first but you’ll breathe more easily,’ he said as the detective hissed against pressure on his side. ‘Wait for the tablets to kick in. It shouldn’t be too long—and you’ll feel better soon, Sherlock, I promise. You don’t have to sleep to rest, so don’t try that one with me either. Just having a lie down will be better than whatever else you’ve been doing…’

John wasn’t quite sure why he was still talking, or why he was keeping his voice quiet in a flat whose only two occupants were already in the same room. Sherlock didn’t say anything either, which spoke volumes about his condition; he couldn’t stand aimless speech or noise for the sake of noise, so he must have been too preoccupied to be bothered. As he turned onto his side, exhaling swiftly through his nose as he placed his weight on the damaged bones, John rested his hand affectionately against Sherlock’s shoulder, his thumb tracing the line of the taller man’s collarbone.

They didn’t say anything else for a while, once John had managed to stem the rush of words tumbling out of his mind. He pulled the duvet up over Sherlock’s shoulders, and lingered for a moment before striding around the bed frame and climbing into the other side, the one that he habitually occupied. Sherlock would probably say it had something to do with his dominant hand, or his wounded shoulder, or his unresolved anger with his sister.

It didn’t matter, as long as Sherlock was there to say it.

John pulled the covers up over himself as he settled, and turned off the bedside light. They lay there in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds that invaded the night air being the rustling of sheets and their mismatched breathing.

Eventually, Sherlock spoke. His voice was low, as close to gruff as it could probably get. 'John?'

'Mmhm?' murmured John as he turned over and laid his head against his too-flat, too-lumpy pillow.

'It does mean something.'

Sherlock seemed to hold his breath, as if he expected to be hit or reprimanded. John shifted, moving closer to the line of the detective’s back that lay before him, and curled an arm around Sherlock’s torso, his expert fingers searching for his wrist, the pulse point that evaded him one too many times. He found it, and wrapped his fingers around the heavy metronome of Sherlock’s heartbeat. John exhaled, and pressed a gentle kiss to the soft fabric that lay over the detective's slim shoulder.

'I know,' he said, and he _did_ know. Sherlock was just as readable as anyone else, in the end, and John could read him from the breath against his skin and the hitch in his voice and the heartbeat under his hand. 'I know.'

*

John.

 _John_. The sheets, the pillows, the feather down duvet… everything reminded Sherlock of John. There was no obvious resemblance between the army doctor and bedding, of course, but the fact that it was John’s bedding made all the difference. Sherlock didn’t even mind that the mattress was a bit too firm for his taste. He could overlook that if he could wake up, eyes still closed, and breathe in the familiarity of John’s presence.

He’d spent far too many months without him, too many mornings without their easy familiarity. It was terrifying, if he thought about it; he’d lived for thirty-four years before John had limped into his life, and after eighteen months together he found it difficult to separate John’s presence from the idea of home.

If he didn’t move too much, he could even ignore the fact that his chest hurt like hell every time he took a breath, no matter how shallow. That was probably why he was still in bed, fighting with the fatigue that kept his eyelids drooped over his eyes, and John was most decidedly not. He sorely wished that the doctor was still somewhere behind him, not close enough to touch but certainly close enough to sense, his weight denting the surface of the mattress and applying a certain pressure to the distribution of the duvet. There had been a comforting companionship in their steady, sleeping breathing.

 _John_.

Sherlock mumbled something indecipherable, even to himself. He must have been properly out of it then, more deeply asleep than he’d been for years. Normally he could just spring from sleep, from unconscious to stingingly alive in seconds. It wasn’t abnormal, though, to be tired. He knew that his body needed time to rest—to heal. He just so rarely fulfilled that need that it seemed cumbersome. But he was still distinctly in bed, alone, when he’d not fallen asleep that way. Why did it bother him? It wasn’t like he slept very often or very well, so why should John’s presence matter in the slightest? John was there, though, and still in the flat. The shower was running, but so was the tap. He was waiting for it to warm up, then, and brushing his teeth in the meantime.

Sherlock still didn’t want to open his eyes. Nuzzling into the pillow, smelling so sincerely of John and goose feathers and cable knit sweaters (where had that come from? Cable knit sweaters didn’t even have a scent…), he didn’t want to move. The pain was enough of a deterrent already, and he’d spent so much time ignoring his injuries that it seemed a little bit of a waste not to indulge himself once in a while. Except that was an understatement, because Sherlock Holmes _always_ indulged himself. If he didn’t… well, they all knew what happened.

Two sources of water turned into one. Sherlock opened one eye, waiting. He opened the other when the steady drumming of the shower was bodily interrupted. He didn’t shift, and his chest hurt. His ribs hurt, too, but the funny tightening in his chest was more intriguing. The bruises and cuts on his face didn’t sting anymore, and his hands throbbed when he was tired. He stretched slightly, under the sheets, and shifted over into the warmth left by John’s body. He almost purred, a low happiness vibrating from his chest. He might have fallen asleep again, or he might have not (he wasn’t really sure), but soon enough the sound of water stopped altogether, and Sherlock was aware of the creaking of floorboards.

 _John_.

He heaved himself out of bed too quickly, tangling his limbs in the top sheet and twisting his torso altogether too painfully. He immediately wished that he’d brought his dressing gown up with him the previous night—or earlier this morning, whatever it was—as the artificially warmed air in the flat was no matched for the chilled air on the other side of the Georgian single-glazed windows. Wincing, Sherlock pushed himself to his feet, and when he got there it was immediately clear that his breathing wasn’t doing him much good. He swayed for a moment, and latched a hand onto the nearby chest of draws.

He pointedly didn’t look at the half-packed bags that lay at his feet.

When he caught his breath (or as much of it as he possibly could, in his state), Sherlock made his way downstairs. There were seventeen steps, eight of them creaky and one of them positively lethal, and the wobbly railings didn’t make his descent any easier. But he made it to the landing easily enough, and the sounds of John pottering about in the kitchen were enough to drive towards the room, although he stopped grasping onto furniture. (He stayed close to the wall, though, just in case.)

He sauntered into the room as he usually did, in command of himself and most of the physical world around him—even if he felt just as wobbly as that dodgy railing. Neither he nor John said anything, at first, even though John turned and threw Sherlock a wide smile over his shoulder—mainly because John had just shoveled a spoon of cereal into his mouth, and he was still rather preoccupied with chewing. He hadn’t even sat down at the table, and was leant against the counter with the bowl in his hands. Sherlock eased himself gingerly into the nearest chair, the pain that was dulled by sleep now reaching his brain at full force.

John had to go to work; it was obvious, it was necessary, and he’d signed a contract. It didn’t make Sherlock’s desire to make John stay with him any less intense. Of course he'd always prefer it if John didn't go to the surgery during the day, even if he didn't have several broken ribs. It had been nice to have someone around, even when he'd not been speaking much. The clattering of another individual, the noises of shared living were surprisingly welcome to someone who had spent much of their life alone.

John swallowed heavily, and turned to place his bowl on the counter. Sherlock watched him closely, as he always did. He was never not watching. John took a half-step towards the kettle, and picked up a full mug of tea. He offered it to Sherlock, and held out two tablets in the other hand.

‘For the pain,’ he said, plainly and without exposition. They didn’t need it, and John’s slight smile tempted Sherlock’s mouth into a feeble imitation. It was worse this morning, the pain; it wasn’t just difficulty breathing. He felt like crawling out of his own skin, and burying himself under bedclothes. He took both the tea and the pills silently, swallowing them with gulps of air in his impatience. John just leant back against the counter, munching on mouthful after mouthful of cereal—bran flakes, chopped almonds, porridge oats, honey. Always the same, although sometimes with toast and jam.

Sherlock didn’t understand how John could stand it, sitting around in a doctor’s office all day and diagnosing pinkeye (viral conjunctivitis, to be more precise) or the common cold (acute nasopharyngits) or chicken pox (varicella zoster virus)—and how on earth John managed to speak to all the people going to see a _doctor_ for something as piddling as a cold escaped him.

How did John not get homicidally _bored_?

That was just the thing, though. He could decipher anybody else’s mind, use a combination of logic and observation to entirely map out their synaptic connections. He couldn’t do that with John; he knew what John was like only through familiarity and friendship. Neural impulses and probability weren’t enough to map him out. The fact that somehow Sherlock’s brain had learned to miss John was even more surprising. He'd missed him the entire time he was away. He couldn't stand Molly telling him about what was happening in John's life, but she kept talking, even if it looked like he wasn't listening. It was as if she’d known. (She probably had. _Damn_.)

Sherlock hadn’t been kidding—he _had_ been lost without his blogger.

But what was Dr John Watson to him, now? His doctor, obviously, since he seemed to have decided that Sherlock’s medical care was his responsibility. His assistant. His blogger. His flatmate. His friend. His partner. His _John_ —was there really a word for them, for Sherlock and John? ‘Friend’ and ‘partner’ didn’t exactly seem right, for although Sherlock had never put much store by social niceties, but he was mostly sure that ‘friends’ didn’t share beds.

Not that he didn’t want to. In fact, he would have been highly contented to go back to bed and curl up around John, warm and solid and woolen. But he didn’t know what John expected, what John _wanted_. Would he have wanted to do the same? Or would he want something more?

He'd never been expressly disinterested in sex; as he'd said to Mycroft, it didn't alarm him. He'd never found it repulsive. He'd just never been bothered with it, never really found it worth his time. He didn't need it and he didn't necessarily want it. Once or twice he'd wondered whether or not he'd ever want to shag anyone, and the general conclusion was that he probably wouldn't... except possibly with the exception of someone who was distinctly different from everyone else he'd ever met. If anyone fit that description, it was John.

But he wasn’t interested in _that_ side of John, not really. He might be, one day, but he wasn’t at the moment. It didn’t mean that John’s company didn’t lessen the immense boredom that came with sitting around the flat all day, or that hearing John come up the stairs struck some sort of chord within him, and the tension that coiled in his stomach lessened. The pain in his ribs wasn’t as bad, either.

It seemed rather clear to him: the doctor should stay. Sherlock _wanted_ him to stay.

‘I’ll be back around five,’ said John as he pushed his phone into a pocket of his jeans and picked up his keys from the counter.

Sherlock grunted in response, and continued stared at his tea. Of course, he knew when John was supposed to be back. He knew John’s schedule; it’d been the first thing he’d amused himself with when he’d got back. It had taken him all of fifteen minutes to successfully figure out when John was due to arrive at the surgery, when he’d have to leave the flat in order to get there on time, when he was supposed to have lunch, when he probably liked to take his breaks and when he clocked out. John was a man of habit, after all, and Sherlock had had several weeks to observe his timing. He could make estimations for the days when John stopped at Tesco or there were closures on the Tube.

He’d even managed to waste a few minutes of each day trying to predict which lines would be out on which days. He hadn’t been wrong yet. He should probably mention that there’d be an unplanned closure on the Northern line between Charing Cross and Camden Town in four weekends’ time. Not that he ever used the Tube when he didn’t absolutely have to, but John seemed to have glued himself to an Oyster Card in the time he’d been away.

Maybe he _should_ get one.

‘You’ll be all right today?’ asked John as he rinsed out his bowl in the sink. Sherlock looked at him for a moment, blinking slowly, and nodded. The warmth of the mug in-between his hands was almost as comforting as the warmth of John’s body. It was strangely… distracting.

‘Well, all right then,’ said John on his way out of the kitchen, although he looked unconvinced. Sherlock wasn’t entirely convinced, either. He could have said no, or that he felt like death warmed up (which he did), and have John stay—but he didn’t. And so, John went. ‘See you in a bit.’

Sherlock was almost too slow, and he was only half sure that John was still in the flat when his voice echoed through the rooms. ‘Bye, John.’

‘Don’t be an idiot while I’m away,’ was the nippy and teasing reply. Sherlock smiled, and the door clicked behind him as John descended noisily down the stairs.

Sherlock almost leapt from his seat in the kitchen to watch John go from the window. He didn’t, though whether or not that was because his ribs hurt or because seeing John go hurt was a mystery. He yawned, and tousled his hair with a hand—or, at least, began to until the sharp stabbing pain kicked in again.

God, he needed something seven percent stronger than bloody _tea_.

But John wouldn’t have been happy about that—not happy at all—so Sherlock shook his head, as if to shake the thoughts out of his head, and picked up his tea by the top of the mug as he got to his feet. He’d have to knock himself out another way—and he had a creeping suspicion that _this_ way would be wholly more satisfying.

The whole thing was messy, and Sherlock hated things being _messy_.

He’d have to fix that.


	5. Chapter 5

John almost never went back to Baker Street during his lunch hour.

There had never been any reason to—there was always a Caffè Nero (or something disappointingly similar) on the corner, no matter where in London he was working. Then there was the fact that the flat had been auspiciously empty, always missing something so integral to its existence that it was physically painful to watch it slowly succumb to the inevitable. So he hadn’t gone back—not once. He’d never ventured back during those eight months.

He hadn’t been able to settle unless he could distract himself from the fact that he was half missing.

But there he was, clasping a few files from his office to his chest, on the way back to the flat. There’d be no empty place now, no gaping hole that he could never hope to fill. _He’d_ be there, complaining and ooching around and (hopefully not) aiming John’s handgun at that smirking yellow face on the wall. And as much as they’d argue, or shout at each other or call each other rotten, they both needed someone to talk to. They needed one another in a way that no one else could provide. So John marched down Baker Street from the Tube station, his eyes watering at the edges from the chilled wind that blew roughly down the road. 

It was that time of year, after all.

John gathered his insubstantial coat around himself as his hands searched his pockets for the key that would unlock the life that he once had—and now, miraculously, had back. He still only half believed it at all, even though the man that he’d buried had lain beside him the entire night, and John had watched as his breathing evened out and serenity fell over his usually furrowed features.

He really was beautiful.

John had never thought he’d think that about Sherlock.

He did, though—and he loved him. There was no mistaking it now… or denying it, really. Even if Sherlock didn’t say anything else about it, the detective said enough in the low light of John’s bedroom to tell him what he needed to know.

John closed the door behind him with a clatter, and the dry air that greeted him was almost as uncomfortable as the city’s ubiquitous chill. Mrs Hudson must have had the heating on again. She must have had someone in to fix the boiler after all. John shrugged off his jacketed as he climbed up the stairs leading to 221B. He was surprised with an empty flat when he pushed open the (perilously) unlocked door. He’d have to talk to Sherlock about that.

“Sherlock?” he called as he placed his files on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

He received no answer.

It was eerie, the silence in a place that had been so full of Sherlock’s cacophonous presence. Even if he wasn’t talking (or, to use the more correct term, complaining) or carrying on a snarky commentary, his presence screamed out to John’s famished mind, like water to a dying man. He knew Sherlock, and John’s mind couldn’t just let him fade into the background. He couldn’t log him with the wallpaper or the furniture. He was _everywhere_.

And, yet, he wasn’t. He was nowhere to be found. 

“Sherlock!” called John for a second time, more frantically than before. He didn’t even try to hide the fear in his voice. Sherlock already knew everything about him.

He wouldn’t have put it past Sherlock to wander off, to ignore anything and everything that John had told him in pursuit of an interesting case. After all, he was majestically bored, and John hadn’t brought back those fingers. At least, he hoped they were fingers. He wasn’t sure whether or not Mrs Hudson could stomach another decapitated head.

For a brief moment, John considered dashing back to St Barts to pick up that box of body parts. Maybe that was where Sherlock had gone. Maybe he could call Molly and see if she could get her to keep Sherlock in the lab until he could get there. (He couldn’t. He didn’t have her number. Plus, you couldn’t really talk about the illegal distribution of body parts on an official telephone line.)

But then again, he was jumping to conclusions. Sherlock would have called him an idiot and put the kettle on.

John flung his jacket over the back of one of the chairs in the living room—the one that Sherlock always seemed to claim. He glanced around him, unsure about what was going on. There really was no telling with Sherlock. But then—then he noticed. He observed, and didn’t just _see_. It’d been there all in front of him, just out of reach of his momentary anxiety. Sherlock’s arresting wool coat hung on the back of the door, accompanied by the scarf that always smelled of chemicals and Sherlock’s aftershave. His laptop sat on the table in front of John, unassuming in its message—Sherlock hadn’t touched it that morning. If he had, it’d be on the coffee table or down the side of Sherlock’s leather armchair. John had had to fish it out more than once.

No, Sherlock was there, and he hadn’t left. After all, the place hadn’t seemed so alone, or vacant. It hadn’t felt lonely and lost, as it had every other time John had come home to an empty flat. It felt like _home_.

John strode over to the door leading to Sherlock’s bedroom, and peered into the room. There was absolutely no evidence of Sherlock being there: everything was neat, the bed was made and crisp, there were no piles of files or a rapidly overheating laptop. He turned on his heel in order to walk in the direction of the stairs on the landing—if Sherlock wasn’t on the main floor, then there was only one other place where he could be, no matter how unlikely John thought it was.

Once he reached the door to his own bedroom, he gently pushed the half-open door in order to walk over the threshold. A smile played on his lips as he stepped inside, trying desperately to keep his movements as quiet as possible. Sherlock was curled up in John’s bed, messily wrapped in the disharmony of sheets and duvets and blankets. There was a half-drunk mug of tea on the nightstand, and Sherlock’s mobile sat next to the perpetually unused lamp. John watched him with softening eyes, counting the detective’s inhalations and exhalations.

Sherlock shifted in his sleep, mumbling something incoherent as his hands curled around the corner of his pillow.

He looked… content. Happy, even.

John couldn’t help but smile.           

* 

To: jwatson@johnwatsonblog.co.uk  
From: mhooper@mollyhooper.co.uk  
Cc:  
Bcc:  
Subject: Sherlock 

_Sherlock gave me your email. Or, well, I looked it up on his phone and he didn’t stop me, and that’s just about the same thing as him giving it to me, isn’t it?_

_Anyway, I just wanted… well, I’m not really sure if this’ll help or not but I suppose it’s worth a try. I said that I really only dealt with Mycroft, you know, after the fall. And I did, it was generally Mycroft or Anthea but occasionally Sherlock would come round. (I know. Please.) It was only when he was in London—and he wasn’t always in London, but don’t ask me where he was, I don’t know—and it was safer for him to come round mine than it was to do anything else. He’d kip on the sofa (which was too small for him, as you’d expect) and annoy Toby (who hated him, also as you’d expect)._

_He didn’t do much else._

_That’s the thing. I don’t think he cared, much, for anything else. He’d shout down his phone, and spend hours on his laptop but he didn’t do anything. I suppose he was doing things, obviously, things that he needed to do and things that he needed us to cover up but apart from that… I know he had spells. Black days, you know? And I may not be a practicing psychologist, or a GP, or get out with people that are actually breathing very much, but I’m the same as you. I’m familiar with the ICD-10. I’ve read chapter five. He wasn’t handling it very well. I guess he’d handle it much like you, actually; you’re not as dissimilar as you think. He didn’t care about anything but the work._

_Which I suppose isn’t that different… except it was. It really was. You know what he’s like. He’s… I don’t know, he’s alive. Really, properly alive; more alive than I feel. But he wasn’t, not then. That’s what I meant, John. He wasn’t dead (obviously), he was still breathing and speaking and inhaling tea but he wasn’t Sherlock. Not the same one that I went a bit barmy for._

_It broke my heart._

_I tried to tell him about you, you know. Keep him up to date, that sort of thing. How you were doing. What you were doing. Obviously he didn’t need me to do that, he’d have been able to find out himself if he wanted to. I think he did want to, but couldn’t. Or wouldn’t let himself, I don’t know. So I told him as much as I could. He never seemed to be listening. He ignored me then, like he did most of the time. But he never told me to stop—and we both know how much he enjoys telling people to shut up._

_I don’t know how much he’s told you, and I don’t know how much of the story I know to be honest. But, in any case, it’s important that you he did it for you. He did it to save your life. He killed himself to let you live—and I know you’re just going to say that he knew he’s come out of it alive, but you know as much as I do that there’s always a chance that if you jump from that height onto the pavement that you could end up dead despite your best intentions. A pretty sizable one, too, if you ask me. He was willing to risk that, John._

_So, yeah. This has been sitting in my drafts box for two days, and I’ve been trying to figure out what words to use. I doubt I’ve used the right ones, really, but it’s the best I can do. Just… don’t leave him. He needs you, even if he doesn’t think he does._

_Molly xx_

*

To: mhooper@mollyhooper.co.uk  
From: jwatson@johnwatsonblog.co.uk  
Cc:  
Bcc:  
Subject: Re: Sherlock

_Don’t worry. You found the right words. Most of the time—I think ‘a bit barmy’ is an understatement._

_(All right, a massive one.)_

_He found the words too. A bit._

_John_

*

To: mhooper@mollyhooper.co.uk  
From: sholmes@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk  
Cc:  
Bcc:  
Subject: (no subject)

_I still need those thumbs._

_SH_

*

To: sholmes@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk  
From: mhooper@mollyhooper.co.uk  
Cc:  
Bcc:  
Subject: Re: (no subject)

_Sherlock, you didn’t seem to be in when I came round but Mrs Hudson said that you’d said to go up. In any case, the items in question are in the fridge. Next to the frog. Which you should probably keep further away from the cheese. Why do you have a frog in there, anyway?_

_On another note: don’t muck it up._

_Molly xxx_

*

To: mhooper@mollyhooper.co.uk  
From: sholmes@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk  
Cc:  
Bcc:  
Subject: Re: Re: (no subject)

_John’s making me say thank you._

_For the thumbs._

_SH_

*

_ “JOHN, I’M HOLMES!”  
_ _Dead detective wanders the streets of London_

_Sherlock Holmes, 35, was seen out and about in London this weekend, despite the fact that he supposedly committed suicide last July. Holmes and his flatmate, confirmed bachelor Dr John Watson, 36, were seen taking a stroll through Regent’s Park on Sunday afternoon (pictured right)._ _  
_

_Mr Holmes, who wore his trademark coat and scarf instead of the deerstalker that became synonymous with his image, walked alongside Dr Watson through the park not far from their home in Baker Street._  

_Sherlock Holmes came to be known as the ‘nation’s favourite detective’ following his partnership with Dr John Watson, who chronicled their cases on his blog, entitled The Blog of Dr John H Watson (http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk). Described as ‘an experienced medical doctor recently returned from Afghanistan,’ Dr Watson accompanied Mr Holmes on the majority of his cases. The duo was responsible for the resolution of many high-profile cases, such as the return of Turner’s missing masterpiece ‘Falls of the Reichenbach’ and the rescue of a top City banker in 2011._

_Mr Holmes was called as a witness in the trial of James Moriarty, who was accused of simultaneously breaking into the Tower of London, the Bank of England, and Pentonville Prison last year. Mr Moriarty was found to be innocent, but has since been exposed as a criminal mastermind behind a majority of major crimes both inside and outside of the United Kingdom._

_The detective jumped to his ‘death’ from the roof of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in Smithfield on 15 June 2011. Although his motives were unknown, it was assumed that he decided to end his own life in light of allegations that his cases (both those undertaken independently and those in conjunction with government offices) were his own fabrications. Following the exposure of Kitty Riley’s defamation attempt and the false testimony of Richard Brook (as well as the eruption of an underground movement known for its pledge, ‘I Believe in Sherlock Holmes’), Mr Holmes was posthumously acquitted of charges relating to the accusations of falsifying cases and interfering with police work last autumn._

_It is unclear whether or not Dr John Watson or Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade—both of whom championed Mr Holmes’ cause—were aware of the fact that he was not dead. Nevertheless, it is clear that Mr Holmes has arrived back in the city alive and well enough to take a long stroll around a central London park while chatting (and occasionally laughing!) with Dr Watson._

_The Sun has reached out to the Metropolitan Police Service and received no comments on Holmes’ reappearance._

*

After the first article, the papers had become progressively more absurd. Tuesday’s headline _How He Did It: 7 Ways to Survive That Fall_ made for a morning of Sherlock’s disdainful explanations of why each of the author’s theories were impossible. He held off from revealing what the right way would have been, though, just as John had asked. John hadn’t been as accommodating on Wednesday evening, when he chucked his newly bought paper at the back of Sherlock’s head as soon as he walked through the door. Why there needed to be a gaggle of small-time photographers hanging around their door at twenty-to-eight in the morning, he didn’t know, but John assumed by the picture of him in the evening publications that they wanted more information. (Didn’t they all?) Well, John had thought his stony-faced exit, brow furrowed and lips pinched, wouldn’t have given anything away; Sherlock had laughed and said he could read the entire story on his face.

It was Thursday’s article, however, that took the cake.

John had had to fight his way to his door again, paper under his arm and his keys in the other hand. Sherlock didn’t seemed to notice the havoc outside, but of course he wouldn’t. He hadn’t had to shove them out of the way on his way to work; Sherlock would only be bothered when he had to deal with them himself, and then they wouldn’t know what hit them.

Sherlock was sat at the kitchen table when John got to their flat, cross-referencing something on his computer with an ancient hardback book that he had balanced against his recently rescued microscope.

‘Somehow, I doubt you’ll need a microscope to see the spores on _that_ ,’ John said in lieu of a greeting as he slung the newspaper next to Sherlock’s elbow and shrugged off his coat. All he got in reply was a noncommittal grunt. ‘Sherlock, I can smell that book from here.’

With that, Sherlock flicked the heavy volume shut with a sudden cloud of dust, and shot John a look from under lidded eyes before turning back to whatever it was that he was doing. John had given up asking exactly what days ago.

‘Tea’s over there,’ Sherlock said with a brief incline of his head towards the counter, even though his eyes never left the screen.

‘Has Mrs Hudson been up?’ asked John as he rolled up his sleeves and made his way over to investigate. Sure enough, there was a full mug there, still hot enough to melt particularly sturdy biscuits. Well-timed, that. 

Sherlock was almost too quick to answer. ‘No.’

‘Oh, and there I was thinking that you only made tea in matters of life and death.’

John could have sworn there was a hitch in the steady clatter of Sherlock’s typing, but if it had been there it was corrected before John's mind could contemplate what it meant. The typing continued, loud as ever, and Sherlock replied with an unconvincing excuse. ‘I accidentally made two.’

‘I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,’ John said with a smile as he held the mug in his chilled fingers and made his way back to his paper. As he wrestled it from the grasp of Sherlock’s discarded book, John jerked his head towards the side of the flat that faced the street. ‘That lot will want you as a Star in a Reasonably Priced Car before long, at this rate.’

‘What?’

John sighed, and attempted to shake the creases out of his abused newspaper. ‘Never mind.’

He didn’t miss Sherlock’s small smile—the one that the detective didn’t seem to realise crawled onto his face from time to time. Still, even with its rarity, it didn’t look out of place. John’s mouth, although generally more pliable, twitched into a similar curve as he opened the newspaper. His eyes had only just managed to bring the miniscule black-and-white print into focus when the smile fell away to an expression of mild disbelief. There was probably a small bit of amusement there, too, but it quite hadn’t tunneled its way out.

‘Sherlock, have you seen this?’

John folded the oversized paper back on itself so that a single story was the only thing visible. When Sherlock made no reply, and his typing was as furious as ever despite John’s indignation, a strangled sound escaped John’s throat as he leant across the table and placed the paper in front of Sherlock’s laptop screen. The detective raised his hands from the keys and gave John a blank look.

‘ _This_ , Sherlock!’ John jabbed his finger at the main picture that took up the majority of the page.

The image itself was innocuous enough, if one didn’t look too closely at it. The only thing that suggested it was anything other than a casual image of a central London Tesco Express was the adjoining headline (complete with a terrible pun, as they always were.) The main thing that made John’s mouth hang open was the fact that the image was geared towards a critical observation of John and Sherlock’s most recent trip to the shops. Much to John’s annoyance, he wasn’t having much more luck with chip-and-PIN machines, and therefore the image preserved one of his arguments with the self-checkout for posterity. It didn’t help that Sherlock stood beside him, holding the basket, looking annoyingly smug. 

‘They’ve even following us to the _shops_ now!’ John whipped the paper away from Sherlock’s computer and held it close to his face as to make out some of the more blurry details.

‘And you’re surprised?’ Sherlock’s voice was carefully bored, and John glanced at the detective’s face to make sure they were talking about the same thing. ‘The press when mad about us well before the _‘trial of the century_.’ What made you think they were going to be any less interested when I cheated death?’

‘Well, yes, but—’

‘Why does it bother you? It’s _me_ they’re following.’

‘Sherlock, don’t be dense. You and I are a package deal at this point, we have been for a while. You don’t remember the press I got after you offed yourself. And I’m not letting you wander around on your own until I don’t think you’re liable to run off to Scotland Yard as soon as I turn my back.’

‘I could do that right now.’

‘And yet, you’re not,’ John said flippantly, moving too quickly from one thought to the next. ‘Have you even seen the mess I have to walk through just to get to the bloody surgery?’

A brief scuffle and a handful of raised voices from the street below underlined John’s point. Sherlock leant on his elbows against the tabletop, an overly full mug resting perilously close to his lanky limbs, and listened. Or, thought, John couldn’t tell the difference—and he wasn’t really bothered, either. The article in his hands was proving more fascinating than Sherlock’s familiar idiosyncrasies. 

'They're even listing what they can see in the basket!' exclaimed John as he eased himself into the chair opposite Sherlock.

Sherlock’s face morphed into the one he wore when he’d managed to hit a nerve with Mycroft. 'I wonder what they think I'm doing with the seven types of vinegar.'

John sipped at his tea and smiled as he swallowed. 'Sherlock, even _I_ wonder what you're doing with seven types of vinegar, and I'm living with you.'

*

22 March 2013 14:57             
 **Sherlock’s Not Dead**

Yeah, just thought I should mention that. Not that I knew at the time.

No, instead of letting me know that he actually _hadn’t_ decided to do a very literal interpretation of Humpty Dumpty, he barges into my office at work eight months later. Suppose he thought that’d be a nice surprise. It was, in a way that almost preempted homicide. (Is it homicide if the person’s already supposed to be dead? Or is that some sort of double jeopardy thing?)

Anyway, just thought I’d confirm the news, seeing as Sherlock’s been doing a very good job at not letting anyone get a decent photograph of his face. Though I dread to think how long those photographers were loitering outside Tesco, Sherlock rarely ever goes near the place. I managed to pester him into coming with me, though. He’s getting so chronically bored now that he’s home even a trip to the shops seems mildly interesting.

** 11 comments… **

Supermarkets aren’t interesting.  
Sherlock Holmes 22 March 14:59

You’re sat opposite me. You could have just said that.  
John Watson 22 March 15:00

That look you just gave me isn’t an answer.  
John Watson 22 March 15:01

Stop sulking.  
John Watson 22 March 15:03

I’m not sulking.  
Sherlock Holmes 22 March 15:04

 I have to live with this. Please, someone, give him a case.  
John Watson 22 March 15:05

Oh, so I can take cases now, can I?  
Sherlock Holmes 22 March 15:06

 Knock yourself out.  
(No, please, knock yourself out. I could do with the peace and quiet.)  
John Watson22 March 15:06

I’m so glad Sherlock’s going to be getting out and about more!  
Do keep an eye on him, John.  
Marie Turner 22 March 15:11 

It’s Mrs Hudson again, by the way.  
Marie Turner 22 March 15:12

Why haven’t you rung me?!             
Harry Watson 22 March 18:32

*

Sherlock was still in bed when Mycroft arrived.

Not that he minded too much; he’d been trying to convince himself to get up for at least ten minutes. Well, even that could be construed as a bit of a falsification: he’d been _awake_ , after all. He’d just not pushed himself off a piece of furniture and gone downstairs. Sherlock had spent far more time in bed than he was happy with, if he was being honest, even though John had gone virtually giddy that he wasn’t pushing himself too hard. Well, what on earth did he expect? Even for _Sherlock_ , wandering around London with a crackling chest and sharp shooting pains that doubled him over didn’t sound that enticing. As much as Sherlock hated to admit it, there were some things the body did that the mind simply could not ignore, and staying in bed without moving too much was probably the most relief he’d had for weeks.

On the other hand… he wasn’t about to recreate the mornings before primary school, when Mycroft had to drag him out of bed on the mornings he wasn’t away at boarding school. Sherlock never had willed himself to make the effort to get up when his classes were so exceptionally asinine. He could have recited every one of his textbooks both forwards and backwards, even if all the information they contained _was_ irrelevant. It was only when he’d started his Chemistry O-Level when it’d actually been interesting—and even then, he’d only been keen because it gave him access to a properly stocked laboratory. They never had figured out that it was him who kept destroying test tubes. All accidents, of course. (Well, most of them.) 

Sherlock could hear his brother pacing about on the creaky floorboards, the thin fading carpets wearing even more thin under his impeccably made wingtip brogues. The plain brown ones, probably, if he was going with the creaking of the leather. Right, so he _wasn’t_ just going to go away. Sherlock huffed, highly displeased, and heaved himself away from the warmth of the puddle of sheets beneath him. His ribcage protested, and he pressed his eyes shut as he settled into a sitting position and tried to take a few decent breaths perched uncomfortably on the edge of the mattress. He was not about to keel over in front of bleeding _Mycroft…_ the man already had enough to bother him with. There was no need to give him more ammunition.

He heaved himself to his feet, suddenly feeling far too long and lanky for his own good, and shrugged on one of his dressing gowns that had made their way into John’s bedroom. He certainly hadn’t brought them up himself, but there always seemed to be one to hand when he awoke. Then again, he often had to dig around under several of John’s jumpers that he seemed to be determined not to put away properly. Neither of them had ever really been that keen on tidying up.

However, at that precise moment, Sherlock would have much rather been cleaning the entirety of the apartments of building 221 than emerging from John’s bedroom, yawning, and walking down the flight of frightfully shallow stairs to greet his smug brother.

‘Good morning, Mycroft,’ he said, voice still hoarse but not from disuse. He brushed past his brother into the kitchen with a calculated air of indifference.  (He didn’t mean it. In fact, he hoped Mycroft had a terrible morning.)

Mycroft turned to follow his retreating brother, heels clicking against the bare wood, and sniffed. ‘Barely,’ he said as he closed the door behind him.

Sherlock glanced towards the digital display on the oven. Nearly midday. Not good.

Mycroft did not wait for his reply. (Typical.) ‘You’re normally up early.’

It was an observation and a question all at once. Sherlock raised an eyebrow. ‘What gave you the impression I generally sleep at all?’ He paused. ‘In any case, as a someone with several damaged ribs, I think it would be against medical advice to _not_ sleep in.’

It wasn’t as if he had anything else to be bothered with, either. No cases, no time-sensitive evidence, no John in the flat (at a surgery in Hammersmith; he’d said so as he rolled out of bed), and no Mrs Hudson downstairs (judging by the slammed door an hour or so earlier.) Why should he be up at the crack of dawn? Sherlock had never been one to abide by social conventions, and the idea of typical office ours was probably the one he flouted most often. He’d just get bored, and then what? Mycroft knew his habits only too well: cigarettes as soon as his resolve began to crack, cocaine to give a spark of life to the monotonous tedium that was an average day. Sleeping was a much better option, with the same lack of productivity but a distinct lack of danger. 

‘I suppose that John’s fulfilling his medical duty?’ Mycroft fiddled with his umbrella as he spoke, although to Sherlock his eyes and face were of a man entirely confident in what he was trying to do.

‘He _did_ take a Hippocratic oath—’

‘Oh, I daresay he feels bound by more than _that_.’

Mycroft turned to look pointedly up the stairs, and his eyes returned slowly to meet Sherlock’s gaze, eyes narrowed more than ever. Sherlock didn’t need to deduce what that meant; it was obvious. The elephant in the room was positively trumpeting. The last time Mycroft had been in the flat, he’d been ungraciously ejected during the opening of what was undoubtedly a massive row, and now he’d just arrived to find Sherlock still asleep in John’s bed. It wasn’t as if Mycroft didn’t always have one eye on Baker Street. He knew that they were both still there, and both still alive. He just didn’t quite know what was going on within the old Georgian walls. Then again, neither did Sherlock, so for once they actually _were_ on the same side.

What he did object to was Mycroft’s unquenchable desire to find out _was_ happening.

‘It seems that John’s medical advice has done wonders for you,’ continued Mycroft, both his demeanour and voice careful and calculated.

‘I wouldn’t need it if you’d kept a close enough eye on that last operation,’ snapped Sherlock as he eased himself into his leather armchair. He clipped his elbow on the arm as he favoured his injured side, and bit back the curses that sprung to the tip of his tongue.

‘Ah, yes, well,’ Mycroft cleared his throat, and dropped several newspapers on the table beside Sherlock’s smarting elbow. ‘I suppose you’ve seen the papers.’

‘Naturally.’

There were a lot of them, too. Mycroft’s delivery was made up of no less than fifteen different publications—six respectable, five cheap tabloids, and four with no reputation to speak of at all—and he hadn’t limited himself to one example article per paper, either. Some of them even bore dates for the near future. Kitty Riley’s friends _had_ been busy, hadn’t they? Sherlock cast an eye over the pile, and fished one out with the current date. Mycroft rolled his eyes as he sat in John’s chair (even Sherlock thought of it as John’s chair, now) when he saw that Sherlock had settled himself behind an all-caps headline bearing his own name.

Sherlock, with a voice drier than the Sahara, began to read aloud. ‘Sherlock Holmes, pictured right with his flatmate and colleague Dr John Watson, has been pictured around central London for the past week and a half with no official news of his health or status. Although initially unclear as to whether or not the man pictured was Sherlock Holmes himself—the nation’s favourite private detective—’ He spat the last two words with distaste. ‘—A recent post on John Watson’s blog has confirmed that Mr Holmes is alive and well following his (pseudo)suicide last year.’

Mycroft made no reply. He’d read all of them before he’d arrived, then, or at least had Anthea (was that the name she was sticking with, now?) summarize them. There wasn’t any actual need to read them individually, and Mycroft did so hate repetition. They all said the same thing: Sherlock wasn’t actually dead, he spent a lot of time with John, and there was no response from any official source that they’d contacted for more information. Sherlock folded the newspaper—incorrectly, and tearing a few pages, just to annoy Mycroft—and chucked it back on top of the pile.

‘I do hope you’re not here to try and convince me to give an interview.’ Sherlock doubted it; he didn’t even think it was possible, but just suggesting it would get under Mycroft’s skin.

‘I doubt any self-respecting journalist would subject themselves to such torture.’

His brother’s answer was crisp but not cold. Business. Not pleasure, not familial. They had _business_ to deal with.

Sherlock met Mycroft’s penetrating gaze. ‘You’re here about the paperwork.’ (Mycroft was comfortable with paperwork.)

‘You are, officially, alive. Everything’s been reinstated. I would prefer, however—’ Mycroft took his phone out of his suit jacket pocket, and thumbed at the scroll pad. ‘—If you could possibly keep yourself to yourself for a bit longer.’

‘I can’t be more low-key than I am at the moment,’ said Sherlock, wondering if he could make a cup of tea before it turned into afternoon tea. Mycroft would have to be removed. ‘John’s got me on lockdown. Mrs Hudson’s helping him. It’s all very… inconvenient.’

‘It’s _John_ that’s making you stand out.’ Mycroft didn’t look up from his phone until he replaced it in his pocket. ‘No more blog posts about you for a while. You and I both know that the media adores the salacious, and they’re not unfamiliar with the assumption that you and John are… ah… _otherwise attached_.’

Sherlock looked at his brother, unblinking and still. ‘It’s not too far from the truth.’

‘It would seem that way, wouldn’t it?’ 

Mycroft spoke as if he wasn’t his brother, as if he had no more than a passing interest in the entire matter, or as if he was no more related to Sherlock than he was to John. That was their agreement, their unspoken arrangement that made up for the fact that they weren’t really brothers. Blood brothers, yes, and related, but _brothers_? They didn’t need that sort of entanglement. It was easier to act as they did, cutting out the slop. It was easier, too, to tell each other things they both already knew, even as they both knew they both knew. It filled some void that had appeared in the age gap.

The older Holmes stood up with a flourish of his ebony-handled umbrella. ‘It would be most welcome if you could minimize the scrutiny of your return. The papers are done, ready, foolproof. But the less attention we get before this cloud blows over, the better.’

Sherlock gave an artificial shrug. ‘I’ll do my best.’

Judging from the distasteful expression on Mycroft’s face, he may as well have said he’d hire a skywriting plane to fly over central London and plaster ‘ _I snog John Watson —SH_ ’ in the blue sky over the Thames. Except he hadn’t snogged John Watson, even if they were sharing a bed. Wasn’t that a bit backwards? Mycroft could probably tell, too, which made it all the more irritating. Sherlock had never wanted to test out the societally-acceptable romantic schedule of the physical before, though—or the emotional, at that—so when the the idea of John’s mouth pressed against his didn’t feel immediately unpalatable, Sherlock flinched out of thought.

Mycroft was halfway to the door before he turned back to ask his parting question. ‘Do you happen to know what time John will be back this evening?’

Sherlock knew the question was a ruse. Mycroft could find John wherever and whenever he wanted with a quick glance at the appropriate CCTV cameras. Mycroft knew that Sherlock, knew, too: thirty seven minutes and fifty four seconds past four, give or take five minutes. They both were all too aware of the world around them not to know.

And yet, Sherlock looked his brother in the eye, and said, ‘Not a clue.’

Mycroft cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing as he walked out of the flat. Sherlock counted the clicks of his shoes against the wood of the stairs, measured the width of his his stride as he made his way to the threshold, calculated the velocity of the slammed front door and identified exactly which model of Aston Martin Mycroft had brought out that week from the roar of the engine as it pulled away from the kerb.

There was silence in the flat, then, but not on the inside of Sherlock’s head.

*

John had already had the eggs in the rolling boil for two minutes before he remembered that Sherlock had commandeered their eggcups for cataloguing his mould collection. He’d have been annoyed if not for the overexposure. Sherlock had contaminated the toast rack (for keeping tissue samples separate), several mugs (his version of a body farm, but for mould growth on tea bags), exactly three and a half ramekins (there’d been a brief tussle, and one crockery casualty), a particularly nice saucer (‘Get a _fucking_ ashtray, Sherlock!’), and the coffee pot (which John hadn’t even known they had until Sherlock announced he was brewing something blue in it) in that week alone. They weren’t going to have any anything to eat off of by the end of the month if he kept up like this. 

He left the eggs to their own devices as the slightly burnt toast popped into view with a soft _ping_. They’d just have to do with whatever was left, then, though John reckoned Sherlock wouldn’t notice if he ate straight off the table. Or floor, as the case may be. A sly smile played on John’s lips as he made a mental note to have Mycroft round. His head just might explode if they served him whisky in a teacup. Or toast straight off the breadboard. Or milk in a saucer. Oh, there were too many options to choose from.

‘Are you trying to inflict grievous bodily harm on that piece of bread?’

‘What?’

John turned around, buttered knife still in hand as he looked towards Sherlock’s voice. He was sat on his side of the table—they really were men of habit—pouring over yet another ancient leather-bound volume that was probably older than John’s grandparents. Sherlock’s fingers ghosted above the page, just distant enough to be present but not there, until he reached what John could only presume was a penultimate point and pressed the pad of his finger to the ink. For a moment, John wondered why the most eloquent hand motion he’d come up with in that minute was to brandish the butter knife a little bit more menacingly.

‘There’s really no need for such extensive spreading. We’ll be left with just crusts.’

‘Shut it, Sherlock.’

‘Just offering some friendly advice.’

‘Why don’t you get off your arse and do it yourself, then, if you’re so proficient?’

Sherlock paused, staring at the bookcase opposite him, and his lip curled distastefully around a yet unuttered thought. ‘ _Legwork._ ’

John couldn’t help but smile as he piled toast onto a plate—a smaller one than normal, since all the others had met their maker in one of Sherlock’s more ridiculous ideas of an experiment. The man’s very definition of ‘experiment’ kept getting looser by the day.

‘You’re useless, you know that?’ He shoved the plate under Sherlock’s arm, not really trying to keep the buttery crumbs away from the crackling pages.

There was a satisfied crunch, and Sherlock replied with a mouth full of toast. ‘I beg to differ.' 

‘You just want an argument. You love arguing.’

John padded over the expanse of the sitting room to retrieve his own plate and tea. Sherlock had taken John’s first cup when he’d first come downstairs wrapped in one of John’s dressing gowns. It had looked so ridiculous that John had let him have that cup and forced himself to stop stealing glances behind him as he made another for fear of laughing—or grinning. Both expressions seemed to have waged war on his face; he still wasn’t sure which one had won. His muscles seemed to be experiencing some residual collateral damage.

Sherlock was on his second piece as John sat down opposite him. The man could polish off a boatload of food if he wasn’t working and wasn’t wallowing in one of his black moods. If it had been autumn, John would have said Sherlock was preparing for hibernation.

He pointed to the book that lay between them with the angled edge of his toast. ‘Nicked that from the British Library, then?’

‘I have a Reader Pass.’ Sherlock didn’t look up from whatever it was he was reading.

John’s brows rose in disbelief, and he studied Sherlock over the rim of his mug. ‘Do you, now?’

‘… _Mycroft_ has a Reader Pass.’

‘Oh, _right_ —and I bet you just got your hands on the most gruesome thing you could find, and accessed it under Mycroft’s name.’

Sherlock shot him a look and a creeping smile that suggested John had either hit the nail on the head, or given him the most brilliant idea. John had just chuckled and turned back to his own reading material when a familiar figure appeared at the open doorway.

Mrs Hudson rapped her knuckles against the door, more out of courtesy than any real need. ‘Morning, boys!’ Having spotted them sat at the table, she strode into the flat, a newspaper in her hand. She offered the rolled issue to John with a twitch of her outstretched hand. ‘This just popped through the letterbox, marked for you two.’

John frowned. ‘We’ve not got any subscriptions,’ he said, unsure but his hand still reached out and plucked the paper from her hand. If there was anything in it, and it was meant for him or Sherlock, John would rather not have it bite her. Still, she seemed comfortable enough with the whole situation—letters of breadcrumbs and all sorts of callers at odd hours included.

‘Shall I keep an eye on those?’ she asked, gesturing vaguely to the eggs that still rested on the cooktop.

‘Go on then. Pop the kettle on, too,’ John added as she walked towards the kitchen. ‘Something tells me I’ll need more than one lot of tea this morning.

‘Alright, dear, but remember—’ 

‘—I’m not your housekeeper!’ They all recited the phrase in unison, smiles playing on their faces as they went about their once-lost routine.

John’s smile fell away from his face as he turned back to the newspaper on his lap. There was no reason for newspapers to be shoved through their letterbox. Maybe the local shop was getting annoyed about John’s daily run? John hadn’t come up with a feasible explanation explanation for that particular theory when he noticed the date on the top corner: 26 March, 2012. The next day. _Mycroft_.

‘Sherlock, I think your brother’s taken a second job.’ When the detective’s head snapped up, John jostled the newspaper at him. ‘Paper route.’

 Sherlock rolled his eyes. ‘Shove it with the rest of the stuff he’s brought here, then.’

John didn’t even have a chance to process what Sherlock had said before Mrs Hudson walked back over to where they were sat, tea towel in her hands. ‘Look at the headline. They’re really getting worked up over you two.’

He raked his eyes over the black ink of the page that had been so unobtrusive when he’d been more concerned about biomedical attacks than the morning news. He could barely suppress the giggles as the words strung together in his mind. ‘Oh, it can’t get much better than this.’

_‘OH, SO I CAN TAKE CASES NOW, CAN I?’  
_ _Famously Impervious Detective Under His Doctor’s Orders!_  

Mrs Hudson smiled, and slung the tea towel over her shoulder before taking the article from John’s hand. ‘Give it a go, then,’ she said, pausing to skim the sentences before she began to read aloud.

‘Detective Sherlock Holmes—’ The man in question groaned. ‘—known for his aloof nature and reluctance to follow protocol seems, for once, to be following medical advice. The comments section of Dr John Watson’s blog, ‘The Personal Blog of John H Watson,’ revealed yesterday not only that Mr Holmes will soon be taking on cases, but also that his absence from the world of deduction was the result of the recommendation of none other than Dr Watson himself.’

John took the natural pause as an opportunity to comment, and shot Sherlock an pseudo-exasperated glance (who was still peering at his book, although John could tell he was more interested in listening.) ‘Well, who the hell else would deal with him regularly? They’d probably kick him out after he’d deduced their medical history and diagnosed _them._ ’

Mrs Hudson glanced at him with a look that was probably supposed to be reproachful but John grinned. ‘You know it’s true.’

She made an assenting sound in her throat, and leant on the back of the nearby armchair before continuing. ‘John Watson’s post, entitled ‘ _Sherlock’s Not Dead,_ ’—’

‘Yes, John,’ interrupted Sherlock as he stretched, his long limbs filling John’s range of vision. ‘I _had_ been meaning to ask… how _did_ you come up with that ingenious title? You should pen the next Man Booker Prize winner with that sort of creative mind.’

‘ _Sherlock._ ’ Mrs Hudson had an uncanny ability to sound an awful lot like a stern mother, and for once, Sherlock shut his mouth and kept his thoughts to himself. ‘Now, where was I, exactly…? Ah, yes, here we go: John Watson’s post has confirmed that the detective did not, in fact, commit suicide last year and is instead living with him again at their flat in Marylebone. The interaction of Dr Watson and Mr Holmes suggests that Dr Watson has been managing some injuries sustained by the detective in his eight month absence. Mr Holmes is notoriously difficult to work with, and harbours a flagrant disregard for the rules—’

John glared at Sherlock over the table as the detective stole his last piece of toast. ‘You can say that again.’ 

‘Rules are boring.’ Sherlock’s words were punctuated by purposefully obnoxious munching.

‘What on earth is boring about rules that stop you from bringing back forensic evidence and examining it on our kitchen table?’

‘The table was clean enough to prevent cross-contamination of the samples.’

‘That wasn’t really my point, Sherlock!’

‘Boys!’ Mrs Hudson looked between them, moderating even though they were exchanging small amused smiles. ‘I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear that and continue reading, hmm?’

‘Oh, do _go on_ , Mrs Hudson,’ Sherlock said, drawing out his words in such a way that warranted the kick to the shin John gave him.

‘All sections of the Metropolitan Police Service that have frequently worked with Mr Holmes have had difficulty managing his uncouth and nontraditional methods of crime-solving. His high success rate, however, made him an integral add-on to London’s policing unit (most particularly with Detective Inspector Lestrade’s CID team), even with his domineering personality. Dr Watson, however, seemed to be able to influence the detective easily—’

John scoffed. ‘I don’t know where they got that idea from. This is all down to bribery.’

‘—and there is even stronger evidence that suggests Sherlock Holmes has not been seen in public performing duties related to crime-fighting—there you go, that’s rather nice, dear, making you sound like some sort of superhero—’

‘Supervillian, more like. Have you _seen_ what’s in the fridge?’

‘—since his return to London due to Dr Watson’s medical advice. According to an independent consultant, is it likely that Mr Holmes sustained injuries in the realm of—blah, blah, blah, just some speculation about your fall, now—’

Sherlock sniffed indignantly at the world’s ignorance. ‘It’s probably farther from the truth than last time.’

‘You can’t really get further from the realm of possibility than the suggestion that you jumped into a truck that happened to be passing by on the opposite side of the road and used a decoy body to distract passersby,’ John said as he leant over the table to peer at Sherlock’s side; somehow, there was no more food anywhere on the table. 

‘Well, I’m surprised that none of these imbeciles have suggested that I can somehow be in two places at once or spontaneously developed the ability to fly.’

Mrs Hudson interrupted their side conversation with a gentle _a-ha_! ‘Here’s where it starts up again: it was made clear during last year’s inquest that one of the issues regarding Mr Holmes’s involvement with the criminal investigations department was his disregard for personal injury—’

‘And everyone else’s. You’ve almost had me killed loads of times. I’m used to it by now. Can’t speak for everyone, though.’

Sherlock shot him a look then, one that looked out of place on his face. It wasn’t one that was comfortable on his features, or really that comfortable for John to look at. Mrs Hudson gave them a swift glance, too, and for a moment John could almost imagine the glowing red dot on each of their foreheads, the vision of their features through a gunsight. How close they all came felt all the more real when Sherlock’s foot was resting somewhere to the left of his own, and when all their clothes smelled of each other. John tried to turn back to Sherlock and shoot him a look—meaning what, he didn’t know, but it was better than just letting the comment slide—but he’d already turned back to his research. John settled for nudging his ankle, and the smile that was meant for him was directed at the yellowed pages.

Mrs Hudson cleared her throat, and continued, though her voice was somewhat changed. ‘—and for taking too many risks. John Watson appears to be the only mollifying part of Sherlock Holmes’s public and personal life. This revelation of their (previously very private) dynamic will undoubtably lead to more speculation about the nature of their relationship.’

John pushed his chair back and clambered to his feet with a derisive snort. ‘When haven’t they done that?’

‘Oh, you’re not still sore about the ‘confirmed bachelor’ comment, are you?’ Sherlock called after him, voice raised to follow the doctor’s retreating steps but his eyes clamped onto the page between his fingers.

‘Prick,’ said John as he returned to the table, just-filled teapot in one hand and an extra mug for Mrs Hudson in the other. Luckily for them, Sherlock hadn’t polished off the milk jug as well, and John sloshed a decent amount of the white liquid into each of their cups. ‘You still can’t stand being called ‘boffin Sherlock Holmes,’ either. And what about the hat?’

‘ _Hats_ ,’ corrected Sherlock, rolling his eyes. ‘They keep arriving in the post.’

‘You should be flattered.’

‘It’s not much of a compliment if people think I need one of those things to look presentable.’

‘You’re never presentable in the general sense of the word.’ John grinned. ‘I wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for taking you out into the general population.’

‘Except you are.’ 

‘That’s true,’ said John, feigning introspective thought. ‘That’s my reputation buggered, then.’

Sherlock grinned back at him then, if only for a brief moment. John’s residual smile was still lingering on his face as he emptied the contents of the teapot into their mugs.

‘I’ll just see to those eggs,’ said Mrs Hudson as she inexpertly folded up the paper and placed it between their plates. The gentle clattering of pots and pans was a nice change to the crashes and bangs that usually came out of the kitchen.

John grabbed the newspaper and opened it to another page; it wasn’t everyday that he got the news a day in advance, and he wasn’t about to let the chance go by. Sherlock, however, had yet again abandoned his reading in favor of scowling at the front page. John smiled, and dropped the top of the paper so he could see his flatmate’s face properly.

‘It’s really quite funny.’

Sherlock looked as if the entire thing was leaving a bad taste in his mouth. ‘It’s _moronic_.’

‘Don’t worry. They’ll bore of you eventually.’ The mollification was inadequate for anyone, let alone Sherlock, but John let it be as he turned back to the article in front of him. It wasn’t long before a second smirk had tickled his mouth and he’d caught Sherlock’s eye for a second time.

‘Just wait until X Factor’s on again.’


	6. Chapter 6

‘John! John?’

‘Yeah?’

‘ _John!_ ’

‘All right, hold on, don’t flip your lid—’

John swore under his breath as he spilt his still-scalding tea all over his hand and the bare wood of the tabletop. He should have been immensely relieved that none of the liquid had managed to attach itself to his laptop or the pile of unpaid bills that he’d carelessly shoved next to his plate of biscuits. Still, they weren’t his most pressing problem; not even the stain that was already starting to settle into the grain. No, God knows what other toxic stains that poor table had seen. The real problem that John had on his hands was Sherlock.

He’d only just got back to working directly with the Met. Lestrade had been right about how much of a bureaucratic headache getting Sherlock and him back into everyone’s good books was. Even Mycroft wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole—though John had to admit that probably had more to do with Lestrade’s insistence that at least some things should be done by the book rather than any real aversion to hard work. The initial move from sedentary recovery to working life was therefore private work, half off the books and half ‘being in the right place at the right time all the time,’ as Lestrade had tended to say. No one in their right mind would discourage a concerned member of the public from contacting their local police if they suspected a crime. Sherlock was just a little more… _thorough_ than most.

Their first proper case was one with exploding lamps. Poor Mrs Strickland had only really suspected that she’d been buying dodgy bulbs until one blew the legs off her side table. It turned out that her husband had an eye on her life insurance policy. Sherlock had been highly disappointed and called it eye-wateringly boring, but John’s blog received an upsurge in traffic and a slightly worrying increase in the search term ‘light explosions.’

‘John! John, do you see?’

‘No, Sherlock, I bloody well don’t,’ he muttered as he mopped up the spill with a kitchen towel. He really could have done without a breakthrough right at that very moment—as much as he wanted Sherlock to find out exactly who was blackmailing the rather jumpy physics teacher, there were some equally threatening bills that needed dealing with. And he’d only had one measly sip of that tea.

John tipped what was left of the drink in the sink and listened to Sherlock’s manic scrabbling. He’d been silent since they’d got in a mere quarter of an hour before, organizing his thoughts and theories into something so coherent as to pluck an answer out of thin air. Of course, Sherlock didn’t see it that way. Everything was so very concrete with him.

The loud slamming of Sherlock’s laptop was the last straw.

‘What is it, then?’ John asked as he walked into the living room. ‘No need to start destroying expensi—oof!’

He was shocked to find his coat chucked unceremoniously in his direction. He didn’t catch it as much as he hugged it to his chest as it knocked the wind out of him.

‘Sherlock!’ he said as the detective shrugged on his own coat. The taller man glanced at John with a gleam in his eye that sent a tremor down John’s spine. Now _that_ was the Sherlock he knew.

‘Santander, John! The one on Portobello Road.’

John’s interest piqued. ‘The one that was robbed?’ 

‘Mmm,’ hummed Sherlock as he glanced around himself, long pale fingers seeking out and patting each of his pockets.

John shoved his own arm through his coat. Sometimes—and he didn’t know how Sherlock did it—he only needed a tidbit of information before he tried to catch up with the detective. It wasn’t always an easy game. ‘Wait, that was what… six years ago—?’

Sherlock wasn’t listening; he’d spotted his phone lodged between the cushions on the sofa and lunged through the front door, his hands punching in a familiar set of numbers. John sighed in annoyance, but couldn’t stop the slow smile from spreading over his face as he descended the stairs. He came to a halt next to Sherlock on the curb, and threw out his hand to catch the attention of an approaching cab. Sherlock had the phone pressed to his ear, but he wore his mouth tight and unhappy. Waiting for whoever was on the other end to pick up, then. John smirked as the car came to a halt in front of them: that really was a face of someone who preferred to text.

Sherlock leant down to the driver’s open window, and barked out ‘Scotland Yard,’ before impatiently hauling the back door open. He caught John’s eye as they eased themselves into the seats, and almost forgot to keep his scowling demeanor from smiling. ‘Four, actually,’ he said as John pulled the door shut with a slam. 

At the very same moment, a small tinny voice answered Sherlock’s call. John couldn’t tell what it was saying, but judging from Sherlock’s face, it was mainly useless pleasantries. He didn’t even wait for it to stop talking when he said, ‘Lestrade, it was Mitchell,’ and promptly hung up.

John could just imagine Lestrade staring, mouth agape, at the phone, fuming.

*

Sherlock barged into Lestrade's office with such force that the detective inspector dropped his biscuit.

'For fuck's sake, Sherlock!' he exclaimed, glancing around at them. No doubt the majority of the officers in the force would have confidently assumed that Lestrade had simply been surprised by Sherlock's noisy arrival; John, however, reckoned it had more to do with the biscuit that he was now trying to fish out of his tea.

It wasn’t long before he gave up, however, and slammed the cup onto his desk. ‘What can I do for you, then?’

Sherlock wasted no time, and rattled off his conclusion before easing himself into Lestrade’s chair. ‘Mitchell is the one who’s been blackmailing Booth.’

Lestrade frowned. ‘Mitchell who?’

‘Ian Mitchell.’

‘Again, who?’

Sherlock sighed dramatically, milking the situation for all it was worth. ‘Well, aren’t you a bit useless.’

‘And aren’t _you_ a bit of an arsehole,’ said Lestrade, running a hand over his furrowed brow as he sank into the chair next to the one John had taken. When Sherlock remained silent—more out of indignation than anything else—the inspector looked at him and rolled his eyes. ‘Do go on, then.' 

Sherlock gave him a beady look before continuing. ‘Ian Mitchell has been blackmailing Graham Booth because of their involvement in a robbery of the branch location of Santander on Portobello Road in 2008.’

‘That’s been on the books for years. Open case; we never got anywhere with it. Well, not _me_ , it’s not our division, obviously, but—’

John cut in, feeling as if he wouldn’t have to break up a fight anytime soon. ‘And Sherlock wasn’t all over that?’

‘Sherlock was otherwise engaged at the time. You can ask his brother if you want to know more about it, but you won’t get anything from him. Even I don’t have enough security clearance.’

‘You have _no_ security clearance,’ said Sherlock dryly as he leaned back in the chair he’d commandeered. 

‘What was that about Mitchell, then?’

 John couldn’t help but smile at his lap at Lestrade’s tone, painfully light in an attempt to redirect Sherlock’s scathing commentary. It worked rather well, although Sherlock undoubtably knew he was being appeased.

‘Booth worked near the Portobello branch at the time of the robbery, and still has an account with the bank. Now, a quick look at your cold case records with turn Booth’s name up as a witness. He was held up in the building, along with the tellers and a half a dozen customers. No one was hurt, no one was killed, and someone walked away several hundred thousand pounds richer.' 

Lestrade blinked. ‘And you’re saying that Booth was involved?’

‘No. The man’s done nothing remotely interesting in his life except get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. What I’m saying is that someone else has recognized _him_.’

‘What makes you think it’s Mitchell?’

Sherlock’s face broke into a slow, disconcerting grin. ‘Because he’s more of an idiot than most.’

John thought he heard Lestrade mutter something along the lines of ‘ _Typical…_ ’ but when he turned to face him he was looking expectantly at Sherlock, who never wasted an invitation to be the centre of attention.

‘He made mistakes, and not even intelligent ones. Why am I even here? Because Booth received letters threatening his wife and children _when he has none_.’

John ran through the details in his mind, trying to catch up with Sherlock’s roundabout logic. Graham Booth: thirty-one, unmarried, secondary school drama teacher with a long-term girlfriend. He’d been receiving messages through his letterbox for seven or so weeks, more or less biweekly, since the end of February. He’d thought it was just kids playing tricks, at first, especially when he got the ones that made no sense, but when they started getting more specific he’d rung the police. Not that they’d been able to make heads or tails of them, either.

‘Now, the bit about having a wife is an easy enough mistake to make. Not everyone wears rings, not everyone changes their name, he’s the right sort of age—so’s the girlfriend. Mitchell could have easily seen them together, maybe around the school or somewhere else in town. It’s perfectly possible, it’s just not _true_. But! The bit about children is more difficult to excuse. Again, they’re of the right age, but he doesn’t have any children and neither does she. They’re a bit too young to have teenaged children, so Mitchell can’t have seen him with a student and jumped to conclusions. So where did he get the idea that Booth had children?’

Lestrade and John exchanged a look; it was a rhetorical question. Everything was rhetorical with Sherlock.

‘Well, it’s not the sort of idea that just bubbles up organically, is it? If anything, people normally assume you don’t have children and are shocked when you do! Someone put it there.’

‘So how did you make the leap from _someone_ to Mr Ian _Mitchell_?’

‘Timing, for one. The messages started seven weeks ago, not too long after the school his children attend had a parent’s evening.’

Lestrade frowned. ‘Bit late, isn’t it? Mine always had theirs at the beginning of the first term.’ 

‘Not necessarily. _This_ school has them each term. Mitchell probably just didn’t go to the first one. Anyway, I checked and one of Mitchell’s two sons is part of Booth’s drama course.’

‘You should substitute, Sherlock,’ said John. ‘We all know you have a flair for the dramatic.’

Sherlock wheeled around in his chair to face John, and cocked an eyebrow. ‘Have you already forgotten how you met Mycroft?’ He made a tutting sound with his tongue, and sneered. ‘He thinks that’s _subtle_.’ 

John sniggered, but the sound died away as he wondered if Mycroft had vetted Lestrade as well, when they’d first met. Somehow, he didn’t think Mycroft had mellowed with age; the detective inspector’s initiation was probably even worse.

‘I bumped into the younger Mitchell boy this morning—had a little chat, too.’

A half-subdued snort escaped Lestrade’s mouth, and he assumed a mock-concerned expression as he spoke. ‘When you say ‘bumped into,’ do you _mean_ bumped into, or forcibly kidnapped?’

Sherlock scowled. ‘I’m not my brother.’

‘I’m starting to doubt that,’ quipped Lestrade as he caught John’s eye.

John snorted, and grinned at them both. ‘I _had_ wondered where you’d got to this morning.’

In fact, that was a bit of an understatement. He’d got up that morning to find Sherlock nowhere in the building (let alone the flat) and had only managed to put one of the two pieces of toast he was planning to toast in the toaster. By that point he’d just left the bread on the breadboard and fished his phone out of his jeans pocket to text him. Only when his text of _Sherlock? —JW_ got the reply of _Twenty minutes. —SH_ did he relax. The whole situation made him feel awkward, even if he was the only one who had witnessed it. Sherlock was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, even with damaged ribs, and he really shouldn’t get so concerned about him.

Sherlock glared at them for deviating from the subject at hand. ‘It’s really not that difficult to run into someone on their way to school.’

‘What, by lurking next to school gates? Even you can’t get away with that, Sherlock.’

‘I asked after his _dear_ drama teacher,’ Sherlock continued, ignoring John’s low chuckle, ‘and it turns out that Oscar Mitchell had mentioned that he thought Mr Booth had children to his father at the beginning of the year. He’d since found out that he hadn’t, but it never crossed his mind to correct the mistake.’

‘All right, so he believed that he had a wife and kids,’ said Lestrade, leaning an elbow against the edge of the table and holding Sherlock’s challenging gaze. ‘Not really passable in the courts as reasons why he’s the one sending all these threats.’

‘Wait, how _did_ you end up thinking it was Mitchell? The parent’s evening just suggests it was a parent; there must be hundreds of families that could have done it.’ John held up his hands in a gesture of surrender as Sherlock fixed him with annoyed glance; he was only pointing out the obvious.

‘Only one family requested a directory in the past two months.’

Sherlock sounded as smug as he looked, and for once John didn’t feel guilty about being a bit condescending. ‘All families are supplied with a directory at the beginning of the year, Sherlock.’

‘Not this one; it’s by request.’

‘Bit of an odd system. Not remarkably secure,’ said Lestrade, looking concerned as only a parent could.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, indifferent to the nature of security in academic institutions. ‘They’re not SIS. They’re a _school_. In any case, they keep a close eye on exactly who has a directory and when it was requested. Mr Mitchell’s on their list—he called up on the twenty-first of February, and it was posted to him on the twenty-third.'

Lestrade made an assenting noise in his throat, although the way he was studying the carpets would suggest he was reconstructing the whiteboard they’d scribbled all over in the incident room in his head. ‘But why was he blackmailing him at all? It’s a bit extreme for someone who thinks they _might_ have been recognized by someone who _might_ have identified him in a bank robbery _four years ago_.’ 

‘Easy. Paranoia.’

‘Oh, something you’d know a bit about, then?’

‘Shut it, both of you,’ John said sharply, before Sherlock had a chance to bristle. ‘I can see how that would work. He’d made it, after that, with the money. Imagine worrying that someone might have noticed who you were for four years. Forgetting, then remembering again and going through it again. That’d happen anyway, from time to time—’ John spoke with a degree of familiarity, as he’d lived it, too, twice. Sherlock was only the half of it. ‘—But when he actually _saw_ the man’s face that had been haunting him, why wouldn’t he assume that the other bloke had the same reaction?’

Lestrade didn’t utter a word, but he raised his brows and shut his eyes in acceptance.

‘Right, then. I’d best get cracking on that warrant.’ 

Sherlock couldn’t have possibly looked more pleased with himself.

*

John followed Lestrade out of his office while Sherlock trailed behind them. The rest of the inhabitants of the incident room carried on with their work, unconcerned with the arrival of their detective inspector and his (very odd) pair of freelancers. When Lestrade caught Sally’s elbow, however, their brief conversation seemed to enliven the crowd in a slow-moving wave. Before long John and Sherlock had to stand back, flush against the wall they’d just been behind, while sergeants and constables jumped to their feet, invigorated by their newfound purpose. A brief glance up at Sherlock’s face told John that they’d rapidly passed the stage or intrigue and enthusiasm to incredible boredom. If they weren’t careful enough, Sherlock might have been been bored enough to bombard Sally with his usual range of insults. 

It was only when a particularly plucky constable came up to Sherlock to take an unofficial statement that John realised there might but something a little wrong with Sherlock. Well, not _wrong_ , exactly—that was the wrong way to go about explaining it. Sherlock had begun to stand stiffly, favoring one side as he recalled the names of the individuals he’d spoken to. In any other situation, John would have thought that Sherlock was just annoyed with the bureaucracy of official police work or was playing up just because he could. With light to the recent events, however, John knew it was his ribs. He’d probably felt all right while he was working, jumping over furniture and dashing off to sixth form colleges at eight in the morning. Now, in his downtime, he must have been on the receiving end of another wave of previously-forgotten pain.

Sherlock made to dash towards where Lestrade was standing when the officer excused himself, but John clasped one of the lapels of his coat and pulled the detective around to face him. Vague shadows of winces flitted across Sherlock’s face, and John hauled them both into an adjacent empty hallway, his hand still fisted in the thick wool of Sherlock’s coat. When the door slammed behind them, John released the material but didn’t move his hands very far away from Sherlock’s abdomen.

‘The adrenaline’s worn off, then?’ he asked, trying to avoid actually voicing the fact that Sherlock wasn’t as healed as he wanted to be.

Sherlock frowned, and nodded his head with a stiff neck. If John had to venture a guess, he’d have said that he was clenching his jaw to keep the pain at a manageable distance. There was a lurching in John’s stomach, too, that he had to distract himself from; in the hallway, he could hear Sherlock’s laboured breathing. This was a post-case high with none of the post-case adrenaline. They were in the cold light of day, now—or the cold light of fluorescent lamps—and what had become foggy notions of reality’s problems pushed to the back of their minds were real, concrete, and knocking at the front of their skulls. 

John felt as if he needed to touch Sherlock more than he needed to be touched, but it didn’t stop him from pulling the detective’s shirt out of his trousers and slipping his hands across the expanse of skin that was underneath. Sherlock staggered backwards half a step in order to rest his weight against the stark white wall, and John followed.

‘Is it any worse?’ murmured John, and Sherlock shook his head in response.

John ran his hands across the side of Sherlock’s torso, and when he found no unusual protrusions, he prodded gently at the ribs he knew were still damaged. Sherlock groaned through gritted teeth, and John felt his mouth stiffen into a thin line. The delicate powder blue of the cotton veiled something much more sinister… John didn’t think he could ever forget the web of bruising and swelling. He’d seen it on other people, of course (he _was_ a doctor, after all), and he’d seen much more terrible injuries in Afghanistan, but nothing seemed to send that shot of dread through his veins like Sherlock did. 

_Will caring about them help save them?_

_Nope._

_Then I’ll continue not to make that mistake._

He knew what Sherlock meant now. Well, he’d known then as well. He was a doctor and he was a soldier; he wasn’t unfamiliar with detachment. But as he rested his hands over Sherlock’s ribs, feeling the gentle rise and fall of a breathing torso, intensely aware of the small whuffs of breath that ghosted over his hair, there was a desperation in John’s throat that urged him on to do anything— _anything_ —to keep Sherlock safe. He needed him, he needed to know that he was there and breathing and happy and _alive_ … All the reasons seemed to blur together as he ran his thumbs back and forth over the detective’s mottled skin, feeling every breath, every bone, every glimpse of what was real.

John had almost let his forehead fall against Sherlock’s shoulder when voices and footsteps approached the nearby doors.

‘Get Howsham in, we need him to have a look at this assault case…’ said one of the young constables to the other as they let the door fall closed behind them.

John placed a pinched smile on his face, and nodded politely as the shorter constable caught his eye. Sherlock stood against him, the hem of his coat brushing against John’s back; the doctor didn’t need to turn and look at his face to know that he was scowling. He didn’t turn around when the pair had walked the length of the corridor and disappeared through the door, either, and John could have sworn that he could feel the scowl deepen.

‘Come on, let’s get you home,’ said John as he turned to the door that would take them towards the building’s foyer. ‘We can probably still warm up what’s left of the tea in the microwave.’ 

*

John didn't kiss him.

Not once.  
  
Not on the mouth, anyway.  
  
Sherlock was surprised at how much that bothered him.  
  
Of course, he'd seen John want to do it. They'd be eating breakfast, reading the Sunday headlines and Sherlock would make a catty comment about someone's grammar and John would look at him for a split second too long before smiling. He'd lurch a bit, and hesitate before leaving for the surgery. He thought Sherlock couldn't see him while he was looking down through the microscope, but John was infinitely more interesting than his homemade slides.  
  
But why? Why didn’t he just kiss him?

John made him tea, and always bought rich tea biscuits even though he couldn’t stand them. He never gave him toast made with the heel of the loaf. He brought back the majority of the day’s papers and kept him company reading through the headlines. When he’d had that bad weekend and a stomach bug, John had given him flat Lucozade and sat with him, a warm hand on the back of his neck and a calm voice lulling him into sleep. There was never a shortage of painkillers, and the doctor kept an eye on Sherlock’s ribs. John took fewer and fewer locum jobs, and the ones that he did take were short-term and rarely all-day. He pestered Sherlock to eat, and Sherlock did, but only because John wanted him to. Well, with that and the fact that they spent evening sat side by side, and it felt like it did before the name Jim Moriarty meant anything to either of them.

They shared a bed. On the nights that he slept for any considerable amount at all, Sherlock would pad lightly up the stairs from the landing, sometimes taking the steps two at a time, and crawl into John's bed, nestling into the heat and warmth of companionship. And every time, John would gently push a hand under Sherlock's still-sore ribs and lift so that he could lodge one of the extra overworn and flattened pillows against his ribcage. It was awkward, fumbling in darkness and through sleep, but it helped. Then John would rest his forehead against the top of Sherlock's spine, and drop a brief kiss to his shoulder. And he'd move away, just far enough to be entirely independent of the foreign presence in his bed. 

It was a gesture of 'I care, even when you don't.’ 

Except he did. 

He _did_ care.

He cared more than he thought he would, and (oddly enough) he very much wanted John to kiss him.

* 

Sherlock was standing with his hands in his pockets, staring blankly out the window when John walked into the flat. John glanced at him, eyes narrowed; it was unusual (though not unheard of) for Sherlock to be this still. He’d barely stayed still for more than two minutes for the past few days; ever since the end of the blackmail case, he’d been wearing a hole in the already ailing floorboards.

For a moment, the wild idea that the detective may have been watching for him to walk down the street flashed through John’s mind. It didn’t stay long, though; he knew that Sherlock’s mind needed more to do than the identification of faces on the street below. Then again, he did seem to be rather intent on his thoughts, as even the clattering of John’s keys on their coffee table and the rustle of his coat as he slung it across the back of the sofa didn’t make him do as much as bat an eyelid.

‘Hello,’ said John, as jovially as possible. He needed to be able to tell if Sherlock was falling into another of his black moods, for even though he was taking cases, very few of them engaged his brain for long. On top of that, his ribs were still bothering him more than Sherlock had been willing to admit. John wasn’t stupid, after all, and he could tell. He stood stiffly, more stiffly than he would have before. John didn’t want to just let it go, but Sherlock wouldn’t let him even think about it. It was as if he could read minds; every time John opened his mouth to chastise him, he got the full force of one of Sherlock’s silencing glares. Instead, John had taken to giving Sherlock a once over every time they reunited after a long absence, if only with his well-trained eyes when Sherlock wasn’t likely to be receptive. But as far as he could tell, Sherlock was fully dressed, and there were no dressing gowns in sight, so that was at least half of a good sign. He wasn’t answering, though, and that was probably more like three-quarters of a bad sign.

The detective’s gaze was still focused on some indeterminate point outside the flat. There wasn’t anything that interesting out there. John would know—after all, he’d just walked down it.

John leant against the doorframe, and it squeaked in protest against his weight. The sound seemed to scream through the cluttered silence, the low hum of traffic and the shuffling of Mrs Hudson as she pottered around her flat only highlighting the lack of life in their static existence. He crammed his own hands into his jean pockets, and waited. Whenever the detective wasn’t immediately responsive, there was a virtual guarantee that he’d blurt out whatever was on his mind if you waited for long enough. Sherlock’s mind always raced, he couldn’t keep all those thoughts in there. If he’d been one for pop culture references, John would have told him that he needed a Pensieve. God, Sherlock would have _adored_ a pensieve—not that he needed one, and not that he would be interested in a series of books about wizardry.

The absence of intrusion was too much for Sherlock to ignore, apparently, and he turned to meet John’s stern gaze. John crooked an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twitched into a good-natured half smile that he expected to see returned. However, Sherlock did nothing but maintain his gaze; it should have been reassuring, but it wasn’t. John’s gut reactions were rarely wrong, and he should really have seen it coming.

‘Kiss me,’ said Sherlock. His voice was croaky, as if he hadn’t used it in a while. He cleared his throat awkwardly as he turned away from the window to face John, an expression of such disbelief on his face that plainly thought that his voice had no right to ruin what he had expected to be an authoritative statement. 

‘What?’ John pushed his shoulder away from the doorframe and balanced his weight squarely on his feet. Had Sherlock just asked what he’d thought he’d asked, or was that just his subconcious talking?

‘Kiss me.’

No, definitely Sherlock. Then again, Sherlock’s voice had become his internal narrator once before, so it wasn’t unlikely that it could happen again.

‘What?’ asked John, glad that his voice seemed to be steady enough to fool Sherlock into thinking that he hadn’t just been knocked for a loop.

‘Kiss me.’

‘No, no, I don’t think I ever got that particular subtext,’ said John as he plucked his hands from his pockets and began to make his way towards the kitchen. He had to do something with himself—there was no way that he’d be able to just stand there anymore, and if he didn’t do something quickly, he may just take Sherlock at his (highly unusual) word.

Sherlock tried to follow him, catching the wool of John’s sleeve and groaning as the doctor shakes him off. 'Just because I'm not expressly interested in sex doesn't mean—’  
  
' _God_ , Sherl—' John stopped himself halfway through the detective's name, as if his indignation couldn't handle the detail. 'You couldn't even have waited until I'd got in?'  
  
'Why?'  
  
Why? Of course, of course Sherlock wouldn't see the difference. A conversation was a conversation to him. Whether or not he’d managed to settle down with a cup of tea or was still standing in the doorway was irrelevant. John shook his head and turned away from the detective, ignoring his (rather appealing) request in favour of putting the kettle on. How very English of him; the traditional stoicism was winning out. What he really needed, however, was a moment away from that penetrating stare to gather his thoughts. After all Sherlock Holmes had just asked him to kiss him— _Sherlock Holmes_. It hadn’t even really been a question… more akin to a demand, or an order. But it was Sherlock Holmes, and when had Sherlock wanted to kiss anyone, let alone John Watson?

He stared at the bubbles in the brightly-lit kettle (where on earth had Sherlock bought the thing?) until they reached a rolling boil. Sherlock was prowling around behind him, irritably pushing aside a stack of test tubes. What did he want, anyway? Hell, what did Sherlock want? There was no way that John could know or tell; after all, he’d known the detective better than anyone and the closest he’d seemed to forming a romantic attachment had been that powerplay with Irene Adler. That wasn’t in Sherlock’s head, though, John could tell; he’d packed her away when he’d put her phone in that drawer. In any case, she’d said it before either of them had.

_We’re not a couple._

_Yes, you are._

What he was proposing now, then, was entirely different. John know that he wouldn’t _mind_ kissing Sherlock, if that was was he wanted. The problem was that he’d never thought that Sherlock was interested, in any sense of the word.

Was it an experiment, then? Pure curiosity and the cataloguing of biological impulse? Because John he didn’t think he’d be able to do that, not when he felt how he did about Sherlock. He couldn’t become the equivalent of a bag of thumbs.

‘John…?’ prompted Sherlock’s voice, which was much closer to the back of his neck than John had ever expected. He jumped, and immediately felt a flush creep across his skin. The kettle had come off the boil and the mugs that he’d taken from the cabinet above his head sat empty next to the teapot—he really wasn’t on top of things. Had he really gone on autopilot that much? And for how long had he been supporting himself on the counter with both hands?

'But—but Sherlock, I didn't think you—' he began as he turned to face the detective, but he was cut off by Sherlock’s exclamation as he stalked around the dining table come lab bench.  
  
' _I told you_ , John, we talked about this!'  
  
'You can be royally obtuse, sometimes, Sherlock,' said John, as he flicked the switch on the kettle for a second time and leant back against the kitchen counter. He crossed his arms as he took in a breath to continue. 'And I have a feeling that what you remember as a conversation may actually have been you thinking aloud whilst I was at work.'  
  
Sherlock looked at him as if these small details made no difference.  
  
'So, no, Sherlock, we haven't talked about this.’  
  
'I thought we just did.'  
  
'What?' (That was starting to sound like his catchphrase.)  
  
Sherlock looked as if he was trying to crawl out of his own skin with frustration.

'Surely my asking you to kiss me is enough evidence!’ said the detective as he rounded the corner of the table that held his microscope, narrowly avoiding clipping it with his hip, and he stood with a hand with a palm outstretched towards John. ‘Even _Anderson_ could come to a conclusion on his own with that sort of data!'  
  
' _Don’t_ —don't bring Anderson into this. Proper mood-killer, that.’

Sherlock just looked at him blankly, his palm still outstretched. John knew it was for emphasis, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting to take it… In the silence, the kettle clicked and steam erupted from its spout. Neither man paid any attention to it.

‘John.’

For once that day, Sherlock said John’s name slowly, the utterance entirely devoid of anxiety and haste. Nevertheless, Sherlock wasn’t going to be able to get away with that—as much as John would have enjoyed walking towards the detective and removing every bit of distance between them, he wasn’t about to do it on Sherlock’s terms. Somehow, he doubted that Sherlock knew what his terms even _were_.

‘Sherlock.’

‘John, you…’ Sherlock trailed off as he placed his hands in his pockets, in an attempt to look nonchalant—or as nonchalant as a wired Sherlock Holmes could look.

‘Please—please, don’t,’ replied John as he pushed himself to his feet. ‘I can’t even continue this conversation with the mental image of the Met getting involved.’

Sherlock looked positively confounded as John pushed past him. The overworked kettle remained attempting to boil, although neither of them were likely to be getting any form of tea anytime soon—in a way, they were both too stunned. There were steps on the stairs as well, ones that even John could recognize as Mrs Hudson on her way up to pay her boys a poorly-timed visit. For once, Sherlock would have to deal with her on her own. Not that they ever _dealt_ with her—she dealt with them, if they were going to be brutally honest—but John wasn’t in the mood for her strangely astute observations. Sometimes he wondered whether or not she and the Holmes family were distantly related. 

Though, for a moment as he shut the door to his bedroom, John wondered why he hadn’t just done as Sherlock asked.

It wasn’t as if it would have been abnormal behaviour, after all.

*

They had been sat in opposite ends of the sitting room in silence for precisely thirty-six minutes before Sherlock spoke.

‘You should, you know.’

‘What?’

‘Oxytocin.’

‘ _What_?’

John tore his gaze away from the article in his lap to look at his flatmate, his face incredulous.

‘Wound healing, John, I thought it’d be obvious,’ said Sherlock, peering at the other man over the top of his laptop. ‘The Marazziti study was on heterosexual couples, but it should still apply.’

Flabbergasted and wholly confused, John shut the news magazine that he’d laid on his lap with a resounding slap. ‘Oh, do _enlighten_ me, Sherlock,’ he said dryly. The detective let out an exasperated sigh, and turned back to whatever work he’d been engrossed in since John had got back from work. (Elephant and Castle, it was, now.) 

John looked blindly at the glossy cover image, trying to force himself to control his rising irritation. He picked up the thinly bound issue and placed it carefully beside his abandoned mug, distinctly not looking at Sherlock.

‘ _Wound healing_ , _John,_ ’ came a hasty and exasperated voice.

John was a heartbeat away from telling Sherlock that repeating himself in a slightly more forceful tone wouldn’t do anything to aid comprehension, but Sherlock had reached a point in his speech that interruptions would just go straight over his head. Instead, John tried his best to follow the detective’s fragmented explanations.

‘The study suggested that the increase in plasma oxytocin that followed positive social interactions was directly correlated with increased rate of wound healing, most probably because of the reduction of inflammation.’ 

‘Your point being?’ said John, trying to keep his voice much lighter than it would have been otherwise.

Sherlock positively seethed with dissatisfaction. He wanted John to understand, to see everything as logically as he did. But there was no way that John could be the world through the same crystal clear glasses: Sherlock couldn’t possibly explain his thought processes fully enough for _that_. ‘You’re a doctor. You want to make sure I recover from these injuries. Surely you’d want to speed up the recovery process a bit?’

John scoffed. ‘Bit presumptuous, don’t you think? As soon as you’re all better, I’ll be chasing you all over London full-time and I don’t think _I’ll_ survive that.’

‘John.’

‘Sherlock.’

‘ _John._ '

‘Stop it,’ he snapped, with an air of finality.

Sherlock glared at his computer screen for another forty-three minutes.             

* 

No matter how quietly Sherlock thought he’d managed to get upstairs and into John’s bedroom, there was always a disembodied voice to greet him. It shouldn’t have surprised him; John was a solider, after all, and an ability to sleep through interruptions was about as good as a death sentence. And yet, they’d been working for days on this case, and he hadn’t missed that John had been falling asleep standing up. Therefore, all logic and biological rhythms pointed to the high likelihood of John falling asleep and staying asleep until morning. Sherlock’s own general experience with sleep was of the entirely opposite kind. He dropped away from consciousness and rose to it only when absolutely necessary.

And yet, as Sherlock stood in the glow of the grimy streetlamp outside the window and shrugged off his dressing gown, John spoke.

‘Solved the case, then?’ he said groggily, as if he’d been half-asleep the entire time. Sherlock turned his head to look at the human-shaped lump under the covers, and half-smiled as he caught John’s eye.

‘Mrs Toulson habitually missed her trains,’ he said as he dropped the clothing in his hand on a nearby armchair.

‘Don’t expect me to understand what you mean by that,’ mumbled John into his pillow. Sherlock turned his head away from John, but his eyes only followed suit a few moments later. He looked out onto the street below them as John snaked an arm out from under the covers and checked his phone. The deathly pallor of electronic light lit up his face, and his subsequent exasperated expression.

Sherlock ruffled the back of his hair, and turned to the bed. ‘You’ll find out in the morning.’

‘Papers?’ asked John as he yawned.

‘Probably.’

John made a satisfied sort of sound, one of resignation without resentment.

Sherlock watched as John rearranged his limbs against the mattress (spring, 12.5-gauge, extra firm, approximately four years old), his hands punching the flattening pillow under his head. The army doctor conspicuously kept himself on what they both now considered to be ‘his’ side of the bed—even though Sherlock knew that John was not an entirely neat and compact sleeper. They’d found a rhythm for themselves, an understanding that they both found inoffensive… except that Sherlock found himself more enthusiastic than unoffended. He _liked_ it; for the first time in a long time, he felt as if someone could put up with him. Or, more specifically, that someone _wanted_ to put up with him. And John seemed as comfortable as Sherlock felt, if he was going to judge by his nightly small talk as the detective climbed in beside him, or the fact that John always let him sleep in if he wanted to, or if the idea that John loved him actually sunk in.

If he was to transcribe his first immediate reaction to John’s declaration, it would have been nothing more than unadulterated shock—not unlike that terrifyingly bare night in Dartmoor. He’d pushed John away then, too, but he had just assumed that everyone else was telling the truth… that he was a sociopath, that he was heartless, that it was too easy for him to detach himself because perhaps (just perhaps) he _was_ a machine.

He hadn’t thought that he could love anyone or anything that wasn’t the work. Even that, though, was a little bit misleading, as Sherlock wouldn’t have called it love. That had just been an unnecessary chemical reaction, one that he’d been able to avoid thus far; others, though, had grasped his endocrine system more fully than he would have liked. Reliance, for example, or addiction. But as he climbed in next to the heavy lump of flesh that was Dr John Hamish Watson (for his middle name _was_ Hamish, even if he did deny it), there was a warmth in his heart and a lump in his throat that told him whatever John was—and whatever he and John became—could end up being just as necessary as the work.

‘For God’s sake, Sherlock, your feet are freezing!’

Sherlock’s consciousness lurched out of the depths of his frantic mind. ‘Sorry,’ mumbled the detective against the pillow, and he moved to isolate his (apparently) icy extremities. John had other ideas, however, and quickly sought out Sherlock’s limbs as he turned to face him.

That was another thing, though. John—John couldn’t become the cases. It couldn’t be that way. He couldn’t come home and demand cigarettes before exclaiming that he needed a case and pester everyone around him for something with which to amuse himself. No… John couldn’t be replaced. He might keep talking to him when he went out or not notice if John popped off to Dublin for a weekend, but he couldn’t go back. If John ceased to be there, or to be part of Sherlock’s very odd and very dangerous life, he couldn’t go back. Reverting to the man he’d been without John by his side would be impossible. He’d tasted a tidbit of that sort of life, and although he had wanted to be able to go back to being the cold, isolated Sherlock Holmes, he just _couldn’t_. You couldn’t erase memories, and as much as the general population wanted to think of him as some sort of heartless, soulless genius, John’s voice would not let him be.

He’d missed him so much that it’d _hurt_.

‘Hey,’ said John quietly as he peered as Sherlock’s frowning face. ‘Hey, what’re you thinking about this time?’

Hah—what a question! Did he really want to know? Wasn’t there enough medical jargon banging about in that amazingly average mind, or did he want to lease some space to Sherlock’s useless emotional drivel?

‘Fine, don’t tell me, then,’ came the familiar voice again, gentle and low across the darkness although the words should have been sharp. Sherlock shifted his gaze to look at John’s face in the low light, and noticed a rather glaring pillow crease across the bridge of the doctor’s nose. For some odd reason, it made him want to smile.

‘The ribs feeling all right?’ asked John, shifting Sherlock’s attention to his mouth, then his eyes—then his mouth again. He really would like John to kiss him… but he soon realized John’s implication. He’d bundled himself up beside John like he did every night that he slept for more than twenty minutes, yes, like normal, but he’d neglected to remain on the side of his injured ribs. He didn’t particularly want to roll over, as even though the injury was healing well he was still nowhere near moving without pain. But because it was John, and because he really was getting bloody tired of having a constant shortage of breath, he made a feeble attempt to roll himself onto his other side.

He was halted, however, by a warm and on his hip—or, to be more specific, the small sliver of skin that always got annoyingly cold in the winter where his top kept being pushed away from his pyjama trousers by the sheets. But that would be being too specific (if there was such a thing), because it was John, and he was speaking. Sherlock really did have to try and install a sort of mental volume controller for his racing thoughts.

‘You—you don’t have to, you know,’ he was saying, palming the joint under his hand. ‘Not anymore. It shouldn’t be so severe now.’   

Sherlock, who had paused in a rather painful twisted position, relaxed into his original stance under John’s touch. He almost cursed his body’s pliability, but it was John and he didn’t mind. All the muscles that always seemed tense, all the hackles that were always half raised relaxed as he leant his head back against his two pillows (two flatter ones as opposed to John’s one—he really did need to get around to switching them with one of his own from downstairs) and let John run his hand up across his damaged side. The appendage was comfortably warm, and he focused on that particular sensation with closed eyes, as John made sure that the swelling was going down. It was only when those fingers curled around the nape of his neck, one or two interlaced with the too-long curls, that his eyes snapped open.

‘You’re all right,’ murmured John as he shifted across his pillow towards Sherlock. John laid his forehead against the detective’s dark curls, and breathed in deeply. Sherlock (unconsciously) did the same, and nudged closer to the army doctor.

That must have been enough of an invitation for John, for he then closed the small distance that remained between them and pressed his lips to Sherlock’s. The detective kept his eyes open for just a moment too long, but as he closed them against John’s bed-warmed skin, he couldn’t help but be hyperaware of the presence of their noses (which suddenly seemed quite unnecessary and annoyingly placed) and the throbbing of their paired heartbeats. Semi-stunned, Sherlock brought a hand to rest on John’s side, and his fingers tightened around the fabric that encased skin as John gently pulled away from him. They did not break eye contact, through heavy-lidded gazes, and Sherlock felt as if his mind was uncomfortably empty.

But only for a moment.

Sherlock had an insatiable need to explain, to clarify. He wasn’t going to be able to be any sort of comparable replacement for John’s girlfriends (although why John would want him to be escaped him) He’d be as awkward and contrary as he was the rest of the time, and there would still be experiments spilling out of the kitchen. He had no idea what he was doing, and no idea what he wanted. Hell, he’d wanted John to kiss him but he hadn’t known why or how or whether or not he’d want him to do it again (although that was looking to be a firm yes). He just didn’t know, but he was sure that he needed John one way or another, so he curled his fingers even tighter in John’s shirt, as if he was on the verge of losing him.

John shook his head as Sherlock took in the air needed to vocalize his thoughts. ‘It’s _all_ fine,’ he said against Sherlock’s mouth before kissing Sherlock for a second time, gently taking the detective’s bottom lip between his own.

Sherlock breathed out heavily through his nose but tightened his grip around John’s torso. He could feel John smile against his lips and bring his hand around to cup Sherlock’s face, and this time he let his eyes fall closed quite easily, and his own mouth twitched into a matching smile. John pulled away, but dropped to kiss his mouth one last time before pressing a chaste kiss to the bridge of Sherlock’s nose.

‘Good night, Sherlock,’ he exhaled.

‘Good morning, actually,’ said Sherlock as he rested his head against John’s good shoulder. He could feel John’s laughter rumble in his lungs and ripple through the skeletal structure of his frame, but for once all these facts and reality combined not into a diagram of life, but into a warm, breathing creature that Sherlock wanted nothing more than to keep as close to himself as physically possible.

‘Well, good morning, then,’ replied John, speaking quietly into Sherlock’s hair. He had let his arm drape across the detective’s hip, and Sherlock fell asleep with his arm curled around John’s steadily pounding heart.


	7. Chapter 7

They never said anything. They just did things.

Sherlock found a missing little girl because of her affinity for the giraffes in London Zoo, and they’d gone home and fallen asleep on each other’s shoulders in front of the telly. (Sherlock liked to sit and watch historical documentaries so he could point out all the flaws in the dramatic re-enactments. John liked to point out that Sherlock’s re-enactments of crimes weren’t always perfect either.) John took a brief job at a surgery in Camden, and Sherlock came to keep him company whenever he stayed past closing time to fix the shambolic charts of his predecessor. Sherlock would come to bed at five in the morning, and pull John so tightly to his chest that the soldier wheezed. They worked on a grisly multiple shooting, and Sherlock spent the night with his head resting over John’s heavily beating heart. They still sat slightly apart in cabs, but more often than not John would interlace his fingers with Sherlock’s and rest his thumb over the pulse point on the inside of the detective’s wrist.

John asked about those eight months, and Sherlock told him, with his head in John’s lap one lazy afternoon. (They had those, too, now.) When they didn’t have a case, John made sure that Sherlock didn’t wear flapping dressing gowns while embarking on experiments involving Bunsen burners or blowtorches, and Sherlock left passive-aggressive comments on John’s (wildly popular) write-ups. Sherlock did get an Oyster card, and he amused himself (and John) by muttering his observations about each and every passenger on the way to Richmond Park. John caught a pernicious cold from one of his patients, and Sherlock did the shopping (even if he did need a bit of a push from Mrs Hudson.) Sherlock pressed on nicotine patches, and John peeled them off. Once, when Sherlock had come home later than usual—if there even _was_ such thing as a usual with them—and John had fallen asleep on the sofa, the army doctor woke up with that Belstaff coat draped over him like a blanket. 

But they didn’t say anything.

They talked—that was different. If anything, they talked more than they had before. John had tried to get Sherlock to stop harassing him at work, but it seemed that the detective would stop at nothing to stay in touch with him. It wasn’t as if John was taking as many jobs either, as they were taking cases and solving them so efficiently that even the Daily Mail had no complaints. At first, Sherlock had kept his musings and deductions quieter than he used to, as if he had become used to having no one around to hear them. John still wasn’t any better at keeping his exclamations of ‘extraordinary!’ and ‘brilliant!’ to himself, though, so they evened each other out soon enough. It was like meeting again, but without the uncertainty. They’d both walked straight back into a life they’d adored.

Neither of them voiced any of it.

They knew the worth of words. Both of them understood how empty words could be. Sherlock dealt with empty lies on a day-to-day basis, all thrown out with an eye to money or fame or sex. No matter how many times Harry swore she’d never pick up another bottle of red again, no matter how many times she picked up her phone and hiccuped through an empty promise of _No, I haven’t been down the pub_ , John never quite believed her. Sherlock strung together words to get what he wanted, and whether or not they hurt was an element of language that was entirely irrelevant to him. John had said anything to make Ella stop pressing him for answers.

They weren’t eloquent, but they were in the same realm of disbelief together.

So, they talked all right, but they rarely said anything. Sherlock was (for once) entirely out of his depth, and although John was more predetermined to feel, he was no more likely to say. At least, not yet, not when he knew that Sherlock was so unready. Oh, John _knew_ , just like Sherlock knew and they both understood, but there was a difference between curling up around each other and saying ‘I love you,’ even if, for them, it meant the same thing.

So they kept on doing things, and they never said anything.

* 

The first time one of their investigations went wrong, it was pissing down.

Or, at least, it had been when they arrived. The rain had eased off a bit, only drizzling as the police vans and medical personnel buzzed around the crime scene, cleaning up the mess that they’d had quite a large hand in making. Well, Sherlock had, at least. He’d been the one nearly strangled.

It wasn’t _that_ much of a failure; at least, John didn’t think so. To quote all those bad police dramas that ITV commissioned, they’d got a result. The suspect was in custody—well, as close to custody as he could be when he was sat in the back of a police car—and they’d managed to stop him from adding one more strangling victim to his list of conquests. Sherlock’s clever conversation of riddles even got the guy to name some of his accomplices. There was a slight suggestion that they might be able to find a few of the missing persons that had recently been reported to London police stations, though if they were dead or alive was unclear. Lestrade would have a (relatively) easy time writing this one up, even if he was stony-faced as his team worked around him in the quiet building site.

Then there was the face that John had shot the bugger in the knee with a gun that he wasn’t supposed to own. 

Still. It could have been worse.

The bright, flashing lights on top of the cars blurred in John’s eyes, and he put it down to the rain. There were too many sounds hovering around his ears to be able to listen to all of them, and the one that stood out the most was the incessant squelching of shoes against mud. He was vaguely aware that he’d ruined his own shoes, but whether or not he’d ever be able to wear them again seemed irrelevant. He doubted he’d want to; there was something that told him they’d remind him of the day he almost saw Sherlock die for a second time.

God, the way his eyes had rolled back in his head…

That was when he’d pulled the trigger.

He hadn’t shot to kill, this time. He hadn’t been shooting to distract, either, just to stop. To _stop_ , to stop Sherlock from turning blue in the rain and to stop the bastard from making John do everything again. To just… stop.

For a moment, it had been too much. Everything had blurred into one, and the only thing that mattered was Sherlock. That was dangerous for a man who spent most of his waking hours chasing the detective around the seedy underbelly of London. Would there come a time when John would step too far into the wrong side of the law for Sherlock’s sake? Would there come a time when he’d fuck everything up because he wanted to come home from the surgery to a bored thirty-something who was convinced it was appropriate to act like a waspish six-year-old?

(Probably. He was halfway there already.)

They sat in silence on the back of the ambulance. Both of them had been treated to shock blankets (and what a shocking orange they were), but Sherlock had neglected to pull his back up over his shoulders when it had slipped to the floor. Not surprising, really. They sat so that they were in contact from ankle to shoulder, emanating and sharing body heat through layers of denim and cotton. John let his head fall gently onto Sherlock's shoulder—he was immensely glad that his cheek met the slightly damp, rain-soaked wool of Sherlock's coat. It smelled of Sherlock, too, of his shampoo and his chemicals and his adrenaline.   
  
Without missing a beat, Sherlock turned his head and pressed the bridge of his nose into John's scalp. For a moment, John panicked, although he didn’t really have the energy for it; they hadn’t talked about this, they hadn’t discussed... but then again, he knew that they don't have to, and that they wouldn’t. What they _did_ have to do was stay there, stay there and listen and feel each other breathing. They had to know they were alive, that they were okay. They were all right, sat there in the boot of an ambulance, John with his eyes closed and his mouth in a small, relieved smile, and Sherlock with his eyes open but all his senses focused on John and John's sheer presence.  
  
Because they weren’t dead. Neither of them. Not this time.  
  
Lestrade noticed first, as he walked past them with a sealed evidence bag, but he didn’t say anything. He smiled, though, to himself. Sally noticed next, and gawped. (She never really had embraced the gentle art of subtlety. It was a miracle she didn’t point and shout.) No one else seemed to notice, or at least, no one else they knew. And why should any of them care? They had jobs to do, not gossip to disseminate. 

It really would have been simpler for them to kiss theatrically upon their reunion, to throw themselves into each other’s arms to really put an end to all speculation with a big, juicy public climax. But that wasn't them, was it?  
  
They were more than that.

Not that there was anything _wrong_ with that. John had experienced that sort of attraction, of emotion. He knew full well that it was genuine and not to be discounted, but there was something different with Sherlock. Something there that wasn’t there with any of the women who had thrown their arms around him when he’d come back from Afghanistan on leave. Maybe it was the fact that they’d been through it once before, and they’d had to mime their way through a dress rehearsal for the inevitable. Maybe it was just John and Sherlock.

Maybe it was nothing, and maybe that nothing was absolutely everything.

John let his fingers search for the sliver of skin in between Sherlock’s gloves and the cuff of his ever-so-expensive shirt. He knew that it was there. He’d searched it out many a time before, in taxis and while they were watching telly and in the middle of the night when he’d woken with a start. Sherlock’s wrist was thin and pale, the blue of his veins standing proud against the milky white of his skin; yet the joint was not weak, and the pulse that was beating beneath it was anything but. John leant into the sound more than anything, because it was their lifeline, their proof that nightmares no longer existed in the physical sense of the word.

Sherlock let him have his hand—and it wasn’t like he needed it. John could tell he was tired; Sherlock generally was, after several consecutive days where thoughts of food, drink and sleep were easily eclipsed by clues and theories. It didn’t usually set in so soon, though John reckoned he could cut Sherlock a bit of slack. The detective hummed into John’s hair, the only noise he could make that wasn’t a hoarse croak—not unlike the one John’s childhood dog would have made if he’d given it a Fisherman’s Friend.

_You’ve gone all croaky. Are you getting a cold?_

John smiled, and was half tempted to chuckle. He’d humoured Sherlock, then.

He probably would now, too, when he got the energy. 

The squelching footsteps came distinctly closer to them then, although once or twice whoever was approaching slipped and cursed under his breath. There was a distinct pause after each exclamation as Lestrade—for John could tell it was Lestrade, and it wasn’t as if any of the other officers would come within ten feet of Sherlock—tried to regain his balance. He took advantage of the delay and raised his head from Sherlock’s shoulder, clipping the detective’s chin as he did so, and he gave the wrist one last generous squeeze before replacing his hand into his lap. There was no need for them to flaunt themselves, after all. John wasn’t exactly in the mood for fielding the inevitable questions, either, and highly doubted that Sherlock felt any differently.

‘Right, you two,’ said Lestrade as he came to a squelching halt in front of them. ‘All right?’

Sherlock grunted—which was probably the extent of his vocal ability at that moment—and John tried to muster up a smile that would suggest ease. It didn’t come easily.

‘Yeah, I suppose,’ he began, blinking against the flashing lights of the neon cars that were pulling away. ‘I mean, he’s just about been strangled and I took out the guy’s kneecap. All in a day’s work for us, really.’

Lestrade looked unconvinced, like he always did with Sherlock and John until they could hand him incontrovertible evidence. ‘Yeah, well, let’s not make a fuss of it, then. We’ve got the bastard, so I don’t want to have to wade through bureaucratic nonsense just because you two were involved.’

‘I was under the impression that there was _always_ a load of paper-pushing to get through at the Met.’

‘Yes, well…’ Lestrade trailed off, and ran a hand over his face. John knew the feeling, but could barely find the motivation to do anything but sit next to Sherlock, barely leaning into his warmth and steadiness. Then again, he was only being steady because he was stunned, and that didn’t happen often. It gave John enough reason to worry.

A silence engulfed them, one that had distinct boundaries between their quietness and the hectic movement of everything else in their surroundings. John blinked heavily, now more out of exhaustion than anything else, and watched Lestrade struggle between being their friend and being their Detective Inspector.

Sherlock made a small, squeaking noise in his throat, and even though it could have been nothing more than a misplaced struggle for breath, John murmured to him. ‘Sherlock,’ he began, and although he could have found more words if he’d had the time, he didn’t need to. Sherlock dipped his head, inclining towards John slightly although he still looked forward at Lestrade, and hummed. Not in contentment, and definitely not like a well-stroked cat, but just in… recognition. Their sort of promise. 

John turned back to Lestrade, who sighed heavily and shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

‘Go on, I’ll get your statements in the morning,’ said Lestrade with a concerned glance. John didn’t know if he’d noticed Sherlock’s hoarse excuse for a voice or if he’d read the expression on his own face, but either way, he was grateful.

John was aware that there should have been a comment from Sherlock then, something along the lines of _You can’t be a decent detective if you haven’t noticed it’s already morning_ , but there was a part of him that didn’t want to hear it. It might have said that Sherlock was all right, but it wouldn’t have been true. Not really, not after this.  His feet felt heavy as he slid off the back of the ambulance, roughly bundling up his blanket and throwing it behind him with little care for where it landed.

‘You’ll text us a time, then?’ he asked Lestrade, who was already turning back to his car.

The detective nodded, the solemn expression on his face cracking slightly. ‘And you’ll be late, just because you can.’

*

The lights of a very much awake London flashed past the windows of the cab as it carried John and Sherlock back to Baker Street. They sat apart, leaning on their respective doors, like they always did. It was, however, one of the few times that John didn’t reach out and take Sherlock’s hand. The only normal thing between them was Sherlock’s stillness, his inability to do anything about it. So they sat staring forwards instead, listening half-heartedly to whatever radio drama the cabbie had on. Or, at least, John listened;  who knows what Sherlock was doing with that mind of his.

Whenever John wasn’t paying attention to the overdone West Country accents and their ridiculous storyline, his mind kept driving back to Sherlock. He should have expected it, really—the last time the bugger died, John hadn’t been able to get Sherlock’s voice out of his head. So why would he keep his distance when he was only on the other side of a cab? John couldn’t decide if he wanted Sherlock, wanted him so close. But of course he did, it was his strongest instinct to connect them together in some way, any way… yet there was a searing white heat whenever he did, a distinct surge of fear that made him feel more than just a bit sick. Every separation was a connection was a connection, and every connection was a separation. It was as if he was still afraid that whatever bit of Sherlock he did wrap his hand around would send the same chills through him as his lifeless wrist had so many months ago.

After all, they’d almost been there. They’d walked that line and only come down on the right side of it because they didn’t toe the line. John could have easily been the one to cradle a lifeless Sherlock in the mud of an abandoned building site, and the rain would have stung his eyes as much as the tears did.

But they hadn’t, and they were still alive. The adrenaline was still there, coursing around the veins that suddenly seemed so inadequate, and instead of sharing it with a laugh and Sherlock’s smile, he just felt sick.

John jumped as his phone made a shrill noise in his jacket pocket. He turned to Sherlock—it would be just like him to text when they were sitting right next to each other—but there was no mobile in his slender fingers.

_25-04-2013 01:23  
_ _You and him, then? —GL_

John sighed as he read the message. He knew that they weren’t exactly secret, and he knew that the majority of the tabloid-reading public suspected that they got up to more shagging than they did crime solving. But saying that yes, it was John-and-Sherlock this time felt… well, new. It was the only thing that felt new about the entire thing; pressing kisses to Sherlock’s forehead and falling asleep with Sherlock’s arm wrapped around him felt entirely normal. It’d just been them, before. Now it was everyone else. 

_25-04-2013 01:25  
_ _Yeah. Problem? —JW_

He answered his own question as he pressed send. John could accept and live with the reality of their situation and their lifestyle, the life-threatening bits included. Hell, he needed it as much as Sherlock did, only in a different way. But if this was how he was going to react every time someone pulled out a gun, or a knife, or laid their bare fists on Sherlock, well… then, _that_ would be a problem.

John would be spending an awful lot of time feeling as if he was about to be sick. Sherlock would hate it—he’d be a terrible conversation partner. Yet it was just another thing that he’d have to carry with him, like the bullet in his shoulder and the memory of Sherlock’s grave. He wasn’t about to scurry away from the brilliant man who’d saved _his_ life so quickly.

John’s phone buzzed in his hands, and he only turned to look at the screen after a prolonged glance at the back of Sherlock’s head.

_25-04-2013 01:31  
_ _None at all. —GW_

John did smile at that, even if only for a second.

It was just another thing that they had to be grateful to Lestrade for.

*

When they were both back in the warm, Georgian glow of Baker Street, the bile that had been rising in John’s throat disappeared, only to be replaced by a growing desperation to help Sherlock. Except, like always, he had close to no idea how. That in itself made his stomach turn.

Sherlock peeled the coat off his back gingerly, the slow motion very different from the swift movement with which he’d put it on. John had torn his own off as quickly as possible when he’d got through the door; he’d toed his shoes off as well, more of out an attempt to distance himself from the events of the night than out of concern for Mrs Hudson’s carpets. It wasn’t as easy for Sherlock, though, John knew; he would be sore, painfully hurt with almost any movement. Strangulation didn’t stop at the throat; it took its victim hostage.

John could make a list of all the things he could do— _should_ do. He could put the kettle on, supplying both cups of tea and a hot water bottle. He could send Sherlock straight to bed and make sure he slept the entire ordeal off. He should really don his white coat and examine Sherlock’s throat, for strangulation could kill hours or days after the fact. He could bundle Sherlock into his arms and rub circles into the detective’s back until he could forget the feeling of that bastard’s fingers around his neck. 

But John did nothing of the sort. He couldn’t.

‘Sherlock.’

He needed Sherlock, and some less rational part of him remembered that he might just need Sherlock more than Sherlock needed him in this particular situation.

Sherlock turned from where he had stood facing the hook where he’d just hung his coat. John could see that the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, and there was a tightening in his chest that threatened tears.

‘John,’ came the reply. Sherlock’s voice broke while John’s name rested on his tongue, and John swallowed heavily around the realisation that they were both in one piece—even though it didn’t feel like it. Somehow, that uncontrollable hitch told them both exactly what they needed to know. 

John walked over to Sherlock, and rested his head against the detective’s collarbone. His hands clasped Sherlock’s hips, and pulled him closer, as close as they needed to be. Sherlock snaked an arm around John’s shoulders, and its weight against his spine was a welcome pressure that John never wanted to forget. They were mad, they were broken and they were battered, but they were alive, and at the end of the day, and that was what mattered most.

‘God, Sherlock,’ John said against the rumpled cotton of Sherlock’s usually impeccable shirt. ‘You scare the shit out of me.’

There was a barely perceptible kiss pressed to the top of John’s head. An apology, an excuse, a confession… everything all in one.

‘You…’ John started again, screwing his eyes shut and pressing his forehead even closer to Sherlock’s skin. ‘Don’t. Just… don’t.’

John didn’t ask him to promise. They both knew that he couldn’t do that, and that one day he’d probably end up bleeding out on a damp stretch of pavement when John couldn’t get to him quickly enough. But not this time, and not the next, and not even the one after that—not if they could help it.

John raised his head from Sherlock’s shoulder, although Sherlock kept his grip around John’s shoulders. The doctor raised one of his hands to Sherlock’s neck, his fingers tracing the jagged scratches that he must have given himself in the manic struggle to free his airway. There would be no obvious bruising around his neck, nothing as plain as the bodies they saw on morgue slabs following lethal strangulations. No, non-lethal attacks left marks that wouldn’t be obvious to a casual observer. It was times like these that John didn’t know whether he was thankful of his medical training, or regretted having it at all.

He raised his fingers to Sherlock’s jaw, and gently pushed his face to one side. The detective obliged, and John gulped as he saw the tell-tale signs of his ordeal intermingled with his dark curls. Bruises and pressure marks lingered behind Sherlock’s ears, a reminder that he had come so very close to oblivion. Then again, Sherlock was well-acquainted with oblivion, wasn’t he?

Still.

John leaned up to press his lips to one of the more prominent marks, his own throat thick with a tremulous pulse. Sherlock didn’t pull away, and moved his arm to John’s side; his fingers scrabbled at John’s clothing as he pulled just enough of it free from the waistband. Sherlock’s hand slipped under the shirt and jumper to draw lines against John’s skin with the pads of his fingers. John rested his forehead against Sherlock’s head before kissing the hinge of his jaw, the small connection of jaw and neck that had become their own personal crime scene. He continued, following the line of ever-so-real bone, and John lingered there, as close to Sherlock as he could possibly be.

Sherlock’s jawbone tasted of salt, and all John could do was swallow.

*

In the dim light of their bedroom, Sherlock grabbed at John’s t-shirt before the doctor even had a chance to lay himself down. It was a rare thing indeed when Sherlock was in bed before John was, but normality seemed as if it was a far way off yet, and they’d just have to make do until it arrived. 

John didn’t fight Sherlock; he never did. He bypassed his own pillow in favour of sharing Sherlock’s, even though it was too high and too firm for his taste. If Sherlock wanted him there, he’d be there. He always was.

Sherlock buried his face in John’s shoulder, the hand that had been so insistent before laying lax against John's back. Sherlock’s breath was warm against John’s skin, and although he tried to ignore it, there were hitches in his breathing patterns that betrayed unseen damage. Sherlock’s swallowing had changed, too, and John bit back the words that came tumbling into his mind. He knew that Sherlock wouldn’t want them. 

They lay there, still and silent, until they were breathing in unison. John wanted to get closer to Sherlock than he was to himself. He shifted—or at least, as much as he could around Sherlock virtually pinning him down. In any case, he had enough mobility to lift his head and press a kiss to Sherlock’s cheekbone. John smiled as a closed-eyed Sherlock exhaled a breath that sounded like it had been held back, and he trailed his mouth down Sherlock’s shower-warmed skin until he felt the pulse point on Sherlock’s neck comforting beneath his tongue.

Then John shivered, as if someone was walking over his grave… although he didn’t quite know why.

*

‘No, don’t. No! _Sherlock_!’

Sherlock hadn’t known that mere words could burn so brightly through the darkness.

Oh, he had a mental catalog of the number of times words had prompted someone to kill and to main, to kidnap or to take revenge. He’d just never really understood why. He’d never really wanted to, either; he didn’t need it. He knew that words _did_ , and empirically, that was as much as he needed to know. Sherlock could read situations from their case files and know which words to use where to get the answer he needed… but why words seemed to hurt considerably more than sticks and stones had always escaped him. 

Except now it didn’t, as John ran through the street opposite St Barts in his head just as vividly as he had the previous summer. It was always that, now. At one point, John had been awoken by rapid gunfire and the blind terror of the battlefield. Sherlock had taken that away from him, and in a queer moment, he wished he hadn’t. Not that he often partook in wishmaking—an entirely useless way to occupy his time—but it was there, the twinge in his chest that had been visiting him more and more frequently in the recent weeks surging forth with a renewed ferocity.

‘Let me come through, please… No, he’s my friend—he’s my friend. _Please_ …’

Sherlock curled his hands in John’s shirt and rested them in the small of the doctor’s back. John sounded… well, John sounded _wrong_. He always did, when he muttered those words (for he muttered them often enough into Sherlock’s ear, even if he’d be mortified to know.) He sounded… broken. Crushed, even. Torn to pieces. Sherlock had never been so frightened for anyone before.

John’s eyes snapped open, hovering white and almost sightless in the darkness as they took in reality. Sherlock pressed his forehead to John's sternum, feeling John's heart beat furiously against his closed eyelids. He was gasping for air, gulping down oxygen as if he'd been suffocated by fear. Sherlock frowned; he didn't like problems he couldn't solve.  
  
'I'm home, John,' he said, his voice sleep-roughened and hoarse from abuse. He spoke against the tee shirt that was twisted uncomfortably along John's solid torso, his lips brushing against cotton. He listened carefully, waiting for John’s breathing to even out and his heart rate to stabilize, but neither seemed likely to happen anytime soon. 'John...'  
  
He didn't need to move his head to feel John move towards him, nestling his throat around the curvature of Sherlock's skull. They slotted together perfectly, this way. No inequality, no ranks, no roles to fill—just bodies.

John swallowed hard, obviously still far from calm, and Sherlock tightened his grip on his partner’s waist. 'I'm sorry...' he said, pressing closer with every word, as if he needed to prove that he was real, that he was flesh and sinew and blood and not a fragment of John's tormented imagination. Sherlock knew that too many ghosts haunted these rooms—his included.

'I'm… I’m sorry you had to wait so long.'  
  
John’s heartbeat still pounded against Sherlock’s eyelids, the pace heightened and jumpy. He still took breaths with an air of desperation and defeat. There was enough evidence to suggest to Sherlock that he may have even been crying.   
  
But John raised one of his hands--the one that wasn't trapped under Sherlock's shoulder--and laced his fingers through the bundle of dark curls that lay against the detective's skin, and rested the palm of his hand against the curve of his scalp. John took a rattling breath, his chest shuddering against Sherlock's forehead. The detective didn't really know what to do with himself; he'd never had to offer comfort. No one had ever wanted it from him… but now John _needed_ it.  
  
So he stayed where he was, keeping an arm around John's chest. Being there seemed to be enough; being a heavy deadweight across his torso and a regular puff of air against his chest proved that he wasn't dead.

Because wasn’t that what frightened John the most? Wasn’t that the one thing that had replaced his wartime post-traumatic stress with an entirely far too similar type? Wasn’t that what made John— _his_ John—John H. Watson?

All Sherlock could do was prove John’s nightmares wrong, and stay alive.

Or, to put it another way: all he could do was stay with him.

* 

Sherlock must have turned over in the night, for when he woke he was greeted with the vision of sunlight streaming through the curtains. It was nearing eleven in the morning, judging by the angle of the slant. He really should have been in bed alone, judging by the time, but the soft whuffs of breath against the nape of his neck and the hook of an arm around around his middle suggested otherwise.

For once, being proved wrong wasn’t _quite_ so bad.

John’s arm tightened around Sherlock’s torso as the detective wriggled towards the edge of the bed, and although he halted and was prepared to settle back into the warmth of the duvet if necessary, John released him with a half-hearted grunt before rolling over onto his other side.

‘Good morning to you, then,’ muttered John as Sherlock shuffled out of the bedcovers, a slight smile gracing his mouth. Now, how exactly had that got there? All he’d done was stop wasting valuable time being unconscious.

Sherlock made his way back downstairs to the rest of the flat, not trying to be especially quiet for John’s (or Mrs Hudson’s) sake. He never had before, after all, and John definitely wasn’t one to stay in bed all day. Not when there were more exciting things going on elsewhere.

At least, there must be something going on somewhere that was of interest to them. Sherlock was sure of it; statistically, there had to be _something_. He just hadn’t found the next interesting thing yet. As he was brushing his teeth, it occurred to him that he could pester Lestrade, but the next crushing realisation came while he was in the shower: the detective inspector would still be buried in the previous night’s paperwork. _God_ , and they’d have to help him fill it in… the thought that he could see if Mycroft had anything that could make him conveniently busy with matters of national security did occur while he was buttoning his shirt (a black one, with a black suit—it seemed appropriate), but that idea was quickly filed away in the deepest dungeons of his mind palace.

Well, he’d just have to amuse himself then, wouldn’t he?

Once Sherlock had got to the kitchen, he opened his laptop on his way to pick up the kettle and tapped in his password with one hand as he went to fill it. Really, there was no need for John to type as if he was a tree sloth that had just been introduced to technology. He shook his head and flicked the kettle on to boil; he really had little idea as to why John’s habits interested him so much. There really was very little remarkable about him—apart from, well… seemingly everything. 

He poured boiling water into their respective mugs and, after a few minutes, removed the teabags with a deft motion of his hand and poured in milk—the last of it. John would complain about that, no doubt. Either way, he took both mugs and set them down beside his laptop as he pulled up all the sites that could bring him news of a new case, including his own site and John’s blog.

Come on, come on, there had to be _something_ for him to do…

John came downstairs less than ten minutes later, his short hair unbrushed and body still wrapped in his dressing gown. Sherlock knew that John hadn’t even tried to break the habit of rising early that was a hangover from his years in the army—even if his definition of early wasn’t quite as strict as it once was. It must have really slipped if John only made it out of bed after a post-case Sherlock Holmes; he was generally close to comatose the morning after.

Sherlock pushed his chair out and pulled himself to his feet, abandoning his laptop in favour of offering John his cup of tea one with one hand while holding his own in the other. If there was an entirely unfounded social nicety that he subscribed to, it was the ubiquitous nature of tea to cure all ills. It certainly gave his scratchy throat some much-needed relief.

As John staggered into the kitchen, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Sherlock made to hold the mug out to the doctor, but he barely had a chance to think before John had snaked an arm around Sherlock’s shoulders and pulled him close. Sherlock only just about managed to jerk his hand out of the way in order to avoid covering John with hot tea; he’d spilt some in the meantime, but he didn’t care. John held in his the awkward one-armed hug, and Sherlock could do nothing but keep his tea-laden hands well out of the way. John pressed his face into the skin of Sherlock’s neck, pushing the collar of the way with his nose, and took several deep breaths.

When John did decide to pull away, he did so only in order to press a kiss to Sherlock’s lips. They made an odd picture, standing there with John gripping Sherlock’s shoulder like a drowning sailor would grasp driftwood and Sherlock held entirely incapacitated by tea. Still, when had either of them ever minded being a bit odd?

John pulled away properly after a while, and nudged his nose against Sherlock’s. ‘I do love you, you know,’ he said, with a smile, before he plucked his mug out of Sherlock’s hand and wandered off towards the toaster.

Sherlock… well, Sherlock stood there, still facing the sitting room, and took a sip of his tea.

Then another. And… another. 

He wasn’t shocked—no, he was _never_ shocked—and it wasn’t like he didn’t already know. It wasn’t as if John hadn’t said it before, either. Then it’d been shouted, obviously meant for him although not in an entirely pleasant way, but this… well, it was almost as if John was talking to himself rather than to Sherlock. 

He shut his eyes and shook the thoughts from his head before moving to settle back down in front of his laptop. After all, a breakdown of the sixty-three types of uncommon household poisons wasn’t going to write itself. Yet his mind kept traveling back to John, and even Sherlock knew that his distraction had nothing to do with the noisy rolling boil into which John had just dropped two eggs. No, definitely not. So why did he keep sneaking glances at the back of John's head?  
  
Sherlock knew that John didn't need him to say it back. He knew that it didn't matter, and that John would love him even if he didn't love him back. That was one of the follies of the human mind, one of the ways it can inflict pain on itself.  
  
He did, though. He didn't say it, but he loved him.  
  
He probably always had.

*

He’d been thinking about their relationship for four days when the time came to speak, and even then, he wasn’t quite finished. Sherlock couldn’t remember the last time a line of inquiry had given him that much trouble. 

He’d had a few distractions here and there. John had called them cases, but Sherlock wasn’t about to dignify them with that sort of terminology. He’d left John sorting out the bills during one of them—one of the major galleries had an incident of vandalism in their own archives and it had only taken a few hours and not very many brain cells to find the culprit—and come home to find him helping Mrs Hudson repaint some wainscoting in 221C. He’d been so bored he’d come down to keep them company (or so he said), but he wasn’t about to pick up a paintbrush so John sent him away, calling him a ‘drain on tea and other essential resources.’ Then Sherlock had kissed him, just leaned right over and kissed him on the temple, and scampered up the stairs. He could hear John’s spluttering and Mrs Hudson’s beaming all the way from the kitchen.

When John had come back, he wasted no time in getting his own back. He grasped Sherlock by the lapels from where he was lay on the sofa, and kissed him—hard. Sherlock quite enjoyed John’s mouth, as surprising as that preference was. In what other couples would use as a prelude to a more intimate division of passion, Sherlock and John shared a warmth, a familiarity and comfort that overtook most other things. Sherlock sometimes surprised himself as he sought it out; yet then, with his hand cradling the back of John’s head as the doctor stabilized himself against the sofa with a knee, everything felt entirely right.

‘You won that round, Holmes,’ John had said as he pushed himself to his feet, steadying himself with a palm laid on Sherlock’s chest. ‘But that’s just not on.’ The palm had morphed into a pointing finger that John jabbed into Sherlock’s sternum with each word.

Sherlock had just smirked with that languid half smile that he so often lavished on John, and got an ‘Oh, shut it,’ in reply. 

Now he watched John through the dim light of morning, the doctor stirring only slightly as Sherlock shifted his weight against his back. His hand lay on John’s belly so that he could feel the rise and fall of his breaths, and for a while he was fascinated by them. His own breathing had fell into sync with John’s ages beforehand and Sherlock could count their breaths, keep track of each inhale, exhale… inhale, exhale…

When he thought about it, he didn’t know why he wanted to know. He didn’t know what help it would be to keep track of their breathing on a morning in late April, but he wanted to do it. He wanted to know, he wanted to know everything about John—everything that John knew about himself and everything that he didn’t. He wanted to know what everyone else knew about John as well, he wanted to know everything he’d seen and everything he hadn’t. He wanted to hear John say ‘I love you,’ again.

But _why_? Why did he want to hear John say it? They were just words, nothing that held much meaning for longer than their utterance, and there was nothing else that would suggest their situation was any different. John still looked at him with that expression on his face when they were on their own (Sherlock decided exactly what expression it was yet, only that it was very much unique to him). Sherlock still couldn’t quite figure out why his pulse accelerated when John reached out to clasp his hand. John still pressed kisses to… well, any bit of Sherlock seemed to be the most convenient when the fancy took him. Obviously, there was nothing different about their lifestyle from one week to the next.

So, yet again, Sherlock found himself at odds with the same question: _why_ did he want to hear repetitive confirmations of what he already knew?

John’s voice pulled Sherlock out of his own thoughts.

‘Sherlock?’

‘Mhmm?’

‘You awake?’

Well, clearly he was. He'd just responded to a question. What John meant to ask was ‘do you _want_ to be awake?’

‘I think the fact that I'm speaking to you answers that question.'

'Shut up, then. It's quarter to five in the morning.'

So it was. He hadn’t noticed. He’d had other more important and more interesting things to think about. But then again, it was John that had initiated the conversation; Sherlock had been quite content with his own thoughts and observations, so he didn’t really see why it was his fault.

Sherlock obliged anyway, and pressed a chaste kiss to the edge of John’s hairline. John made a sound that wasn’t that far from a purr, and arched back into Sherlock’s chest ever so slightly, just enough to bring them that little bit closer than they were in sleep. Not that Sherlock had been _asleep_. He’d dozed, for all of forty odd minutes, then his mind had caught up with him. John had said, once, when Sherlock had got some odd ideas in his head whose origins even he couldn’t pinpoint, that sometimes, things didn’t have to make sense… but that didn’t stop Sherlock from worrying about the illogicality of it all—of _them_. He needed more time; more time to think, more time to feel, more time to experiment, more time to discover…

Sherlock tightened his arm around John’s torso as he breached the comfortable silence. ‘John?’

‘That’d be me.’

Sherlock scoffed, the sound muffled by flesh and duvet, but his disdain didn’t last long.

‘Don’t go.’

He wanted to bite back the words as soon as he’d said them, and Sherlock buried his face in his pillow.

John yawned, and pulled the duvet to his shoulder. ‘Right now, I’m definitely _going_ back to sleep.’ 

‘John.’ 

It was almost a prayer.

Sherlock held his breath as John realized the importance of what he’d just said, and pressed his forehead to the back of John’s neck. ‘Oh, Sherlock…’ said the doctor in a low, private voice. Sherlock closed his eyes, pressing the lids shut almost painfully against the small area of John’s skin in between his hairline and the neckline of his shirt.

John lifted the arm that was on top of the duvet and reached behind him, resting his hand on top of Sherlock’s thigh. He stroked his thumb back and forth, and even through the layers of bedsheets, its message was crystal clear to both of them. John turned his head slightly, and murmured, ‘I’m not going anywhere.' 

*

Sometimes, John found that he couldn’t stop his mind from wandering. In that moment, he was supposed to be mentally preparing for an informal interview for a temporary position in Hackney, and instead he kept returning to contemplations of a decidedly more Sherlockian flavour. The bloody man had well and truly squirreled himself into every facet of John’s life—not that he really minded. He’d have probably done the same thing if he’d been given half a chance.

In any case, he found himself perched on the edge of a chair in a painfully cheery waiting room with his mind somewhere completely different. In their bed, to be precise, although not in the lewd sense that the thought initially suggested. The memory was over a week old, at that point, yet the pressure of Sherlock’s hand on his back as he awoke with a start still seared into his skin. The recollection of Sherlock’s words against his chest induced a whole new type of pressure, one that made his ribcage feel far too small. All because Sherlock had done something very much out of character: he’d cared.

Well, John knew that that in itself wasn’t outside of Sherlock’s realm of experience. The man had killed himself to save his friends—because contrary to what Mycroft thought, he could have (and value) friendships. No, the difference was that he’d put himself in the emotional firing line, for once. He’d cared enough to wrap himself around John and admit that _he’d_ done it to him, that he was the reason they were all so fucked up. Not the only reason, no, but one of the big ones. He’d cared enough about John’s distress to admit he’d made a mistake, that he wasn’t always the cleverest man in the room, that he did have the greatest weakness of them all—a heart.

Sherlock thought that he was entirely unaffected by emotions. He considered himself above them, even, as if they would just hold him back more than any physical injury. But no, Sherlock was governedby his emotions—more specifically, his boredom. He was afraid of being bored, and disliked monotony with a passion that rivaled his animosity towards Anderson. He didn’t like what his mind did to him when it wasn’t being used, and that influence was much more potent than any sort of love or lust or attatchment. If that wasn’t reacting to an emotion, John didn’t know what was. So that night held centre stage in John’s mind day after day only reinforced Sherlock’s feelings, and the fact that he had them at all. He had stopped pretending. He had realized that John didn’t care as long as Sherlock was there—and alive.

From that night on, Sherlock always came to bed. He didn't always sleep, and he wasn't even in pajamas most of the time, but he was there as John drifted off into sleep. He almost always brought something with him: his laptop, a massive reference book, evidence from a case. He tried once to bring in a bit of one of his numerous mould experiments, but John had put his foot down. One night, when an especially vigorous thunderstorm had clattered at their windows, John awoke to find that Sherlock was still on his laptop, tapping away on the keys as if his fingers were racing one other in an attempt to set a world speed record. John really did need to learn how Sherlock did that.

'Hey,' he said groggily as he turned over, twisting in order to face his bedmate. 'Still up?'  
  
'Of course, John. Blogs don't run themselves.'

‘Just trying to be nice. No need to break out the sarcasm.’ John’s sentence was drawn out by a comfortable yawn.

‘There’s always a need.’

‘Right. You don’t do nice, do you? How could I have forgotten?’

John turned to face Sherlock when he didn’t get much in the way of an answer. The detective had propped himself up against the bare wood of the headboard—undoubtably giving himself a neck ache that he’d complain about, with absolute relish, in the morning. He’d left all the lights off, too, even the one that John had tried to establish as the one that wouldn’t bother him. The artificial light of the whirring computer on Sherlock’s lap cast his face in a sickly blue gleam, and for a moment it was all too close to the blood-spattered face that John had reached out to on the pavement.

He cleared his throat, and hauled himself up onto an elbow. ‘What’s it about this time, then?’

John craned his neck, and the sight of a very familiar blogging platform’s composition screen greeted his temporarily blinded eyes. The only difference was that Sherlock’s writing was much less conversational than John’s, and contained far more instances of words with too many syllables. For once, though, John didn’t need Sherlock’s dismissive explanation of his article. He recognised enough of it on his own: Sherlock had been completing an extensive examination of the fact that the troughs and valleys of a firearm imprint on any bullets fired from the said firearm.

‘Oh, something I might know a bit about—and you wait until I’m asleep?’ He exclaimed as he finished reading, his voice full of mock indignation.

Sherlock smiled with half his mouth. ‘To be fair, I didn’t have to wait very long.’

‘Prat.’

‘You flatter me.' 

Which was true, John knew. He had to get that particular unconscious impulse under control. He must have said something akin to _sod off, you fop_ , but he couldn’t really remember. What he did remember was the way the mattress dipped when Sherlock lay beside him, and how he turned into its warmth; he remembered the familiar smell of Sherlock’s shampoo, and the underlying hint of the cologne that he’d worn since before John had met him. It seemed to just be part of him, a component of his bloodstream and a metallic tang under John’s tongue. What he did remember was winding his fingers around Sherlock’s wrist and drawing it down, flat against the duvet, as he searched for the heartbeat that had once evaded him.   
  
Sherlock had let him keep it, and finished his post typing with one hand.

*

John glanced through the newspaper he’d plucked from the pile on the table in front of him, more interested in anything that would pique Sherlock’s curiosity than actual news. That was another occupational hazard that came with living and working with Sherlock, and John smiled to himself as he realized what he was doing. There really was no stopping it.

The surgery was getting busier by the minute, as the empty chairs around him were filled by mothers with sniffly toddlers and dubious-looking children being told ‘No, of course there won’t be any injections this time.’ John saw exactly how much they needed another pair of hands; even the receptionist who had told him they were running late seemed frazzled by the influx of patients. There never really was a good time for a doctor to take maternity leave.

There was a couple sat directly opposite him, and the woman was obviously heavily pregnant. John would have estimated six or seven months, if he’d had to guess, but it was the couple themselves—and not their pregnancy—that caught his attention. He husband (for he was her husband, judging by the ring on his finger and the two rings on hers— _god_ , Sherlock was rubbing off on him) looked at her in such a way… well, there was no way to describe it without veering into the realm of sickly poetry. It was as if she was… everything. Not just the only woman in the room, just _everything_. There wasn’t even a room for her to be in, as far as he was concerned. His world contracted to contain only her.

John had once wondered if he wanted children. He probably would have had one or two, if he’d never met Sherlock, but that wouldn’t have been from his own impetus. He probably would have been a good father and had a happy marriage. Yet it wasn’t something that he thought about. It wasn’t something that he missed, or yearned for, or wanted in any use of the word. He wanted to be with Sherlock and that was it, even if it meant no active sex life and no life and no kids. 

It wasn’t as if he sat across the room from Sherlock consumed by lust, or constantly grappled with want. No, it wasn’t like that. He wanted Sherlock to be there, to be _alive_ —and that was a difficult enough task. He wanted to curl up beside him on the sofa when he didn’t have cases, and he most desperately wanted to wake up with Sherlock’s palm splayed across his back. He wanted to kiss him—sometimes, he wanted to kiss him hard and deep and long. But he still wasn’t bothered about shagging him. Not that he wouldn’t be willing if Sherlock ever fancied a go—no, he would be game for that, if Sherlock was sure. He just didn’t need it. 

He loved Sherlock all the same.

He was _happy_ , all the same.

Just as the thought had reached his lips and quirked them into a smile, his phone buzzed wildly in his pocket, rattling against his keys. He shot a nervous-looking boy sitting near him a winning smile as he shifted to dig the phone out of his pocket, and was halfway to turning the thing off completely before he read the text message properly.

_03-05-2013 10:19_  
 _New case. Insulting Lestrade is boring  
_ _without your palpable disapproval. —SH_

John shook his head, even though he knew Sherlock couldn’t see him. The git was probably picturing him doing it anyway, so why not just give him the satisfaction of being right?

The thing was, even as he set the phone to silent, that he felt an inexcusable urge to rush out of the building and hail the closest taxi. He really did need to stay, though. It wasn’t as if Sherlock had had many more five-figure cheques from clients, and even with Mrs Hudson’s good price on the flat, there were bills to pay. Not that Sherlock noticed; John doubted that Sherlock have ever paid a bill in his life. Or, at the very least, worried about paying bills. John did worry, and he really shouldn’t have been considering going back to Baker Street.

Except he was, and he shot an apologetic smile at the receptionist as the glass door closed behind him. 


	8. Chapter 8

‘We all know that your team is few sandwiches short of a picnic.’ 

John let his forehead fall against the back of their front door as Sherlock’s sullen tone drifted down the staircase. How the hell had mildly creative idiomatic insults escaped deletion? There really was more of a need for a rudimentary knowledge of the solar system than for a varied catalog of snubs, but knowing Sherlock, his priorities were already skewed every which way. Sherlock must have noticed that John had arrived (even an idiot wouldn’t have missed the front door opening and closing), and was making a point of being more and more uncooperative with every stair John climbed. The doctor was starting to wonder if Sherlock had pulled him way from several months of work for something that he’d eventually deem to be a mind-numbingly boring three. The cheek of the man—he’d refused to get out of bed for anything less than an _eight_ in the past, and sent John to a field in the middle of bloody nowhere!

Still. It wasn’t as if he’d come into the surgery and dragged John out by the wrist. He’d only texted him—John could only blame himself if the case ended up being a false start.

Both Sherlock and Lestrade had swapped immature argument for silence when John came to a stop in the open doorway. Lestrade’s mouth was pulled into a tight line, and Sherlock’s face bore the telltale signs of someone who had just sincerely enjoyed winding someone else up. There was enough tension in the room to cut with a knife and spread on some toast; Lestrade stood, leaning against the kitchen table, with his arms folded against his chest, waiting.

John spoke first. ‘Hello.’

Lestrade turned to him with a cursory nod, and opened his mouth to speak—only to be cut off by Sherlock’s sudden outstretched hand. The file in question hung loosely from his fingers; Lestrade looked a little bit more than worried that some essential information would fall out of the end. ‘ _Someone_ has snatched this girl from _somewhere_ in central London with no one noticing.’

John shot Lestrade an apologetic look as they both flinched away from Sherlock’s coarse explanation of the situation. In any case, he reached out and took the file from Sherlock’s hand before he could spill all the papers onto their already cluttered coffee table. He was greeted with papers and photographs held together with bulldog clips, and bright brown eyes smiled up at him from the open file.

‘I’m sure they’ve got a bit more information than that,’ said John as he read through the preliminary notes, jerking his head in Lestrade’s direction to indicate that he meant the Metropolitan Police.

Sherlock snorted. ‘Not much more. As I’ve said: they’re _always_ out of their depth.' 

‘Then how do they manage to solve all the crimes that you deem to be too monotonous to investigate?’ John muttered as he flicked through the rest of the file. He glanced at Lestrade’s well-smothered smirk out of the corner of his eye.

‘So what exactly have we got, here?’ asked John as he turned to Lestrade, holding the file open in his upturned palm. ‘A disappearance?’

‘It’s looking more like a kidnapping at this point,’ said Lestrade as he walked towards where John stood. He jabbed a finger at the image of a young blonde woman as he spoke again. ‘Nathalie Briggs, twenty years of age—’

He’d barely got a sentence into his briefing when Sherlock exhaled melodramatically and all but collapsed into his armchair, his eyes rolling backwards as his head lolled back. John wasn’t quite sure whether he was bored with the entire case or just bored with waiting for them to get a move on. Either way, John shot Sherlock a stern gaze in the brief lull in speech. Sherlock _was_ in a suit, but there was something about the crispness of his shirt that suggested he’d not been in it for long. He was interested, then, interested enough to draw himself out of a royal sulk and to make him more irritable as everyone rushed to keep up with him. Or, at least, he would be if Lestrade didn’t put his foot down and get John properly filled in.

Lestrade ignored Sherlock’s antics with an air that said he’d seen it all before, and took a steadying breath before beginning for a second time. ‘Nathalie Briggs, twenty. Third-year classics student at King’s College London, reported missing yesterday evening by her boyfriend when she didn’t get home from work on Tuesday afternoon.’ 

John nodded along silently, reconstructing the timeline and listening to Lestrade’s words mirror the information in his hands. ‘And she works at the Royal Academy?’ he asked, almost incredulous at her good fortune.

‘Yeah, but I don’t think we can assume that she works there in a capacity that would endanger her life. We’ve already had someone down there to speak to her superior—though not her colleagues—and it seems that she was involved with organizing exhibitions and assisting curators. Lots of research and filing. She’s not been smuggling Constable’s masterworks out the back door.’

‘You said that she never made it back from work?’

‘Her shift ended at five, and she rang the boyfriend—one Colin Morrisson—to let him know she was on her way back. She never arrived at the flat they shared on Stamford Street.’

‘Southwark? Nice, for students.’

‘A practical choice. Both their degrees kept them at the King’s building on the Strand.’

John chewed his lip as he glanced at a map attached to the back of the file. ‘And you’ve ruled out the boyfriend?’ he asked as his eye traced the highlighted streets. After all, most of the time, these sorts of things were usually done by people who knew their victims, and knew them well.

Lestrade nodded. ‘He was at work when he took her call. He’d taken an extra shift at Waterstones. Covering for a friend, apparently. We’ve got him CCTV of him working on the tills until seven.’ 

‘Right…’ John trailed off as his brain processed the onslaught of information. ‘And no one saw her?’

Lestrade shook his head. ‘No. We’ve got footage of her leaving the RA, but after that? Nothing.’ 

‘Not even from surveillance on the Tube?’

‘Not yet. We’re still looking, so we can’t rule it out, but we’ve not got any witnesses after she steps onto Piccadilly Road.’

‘So she disappeared without anyone noticing?’

‘ _Finally_!’ called Sherlock, whose head was still upside down. He pulled it upright and sat up straighter as he fixed John with an expression one would use if they were trying to explain plate tectonics to a dog. ‘You’ve cottoned on.’

John ignored him. ‘But surely there are some other obvious lines of inquiry to check? What about ex-boyfriends?’

‘There aren’t any. At least, not in the city. She only moved to London full time last autumn. Her family’s from Yorkshire, and according to the boyfriend she only had one other relationship at college in Leeds. They—Morrisson and Briggs, I mean—met a few weeks into their first year and have been involved since the beginning of their second.’

Sherlock butted in, jumping to his feet and walking in between John and Lestrade as they conversed. ‘And you think that proves anything?’ he exclaimed, unhooking his coat from its peg on the door.

‘No, of course not, but it’s all we’ve bloody got at the moment, Sherlock.’

‘That’s why you need me.’ He was looping his scarf around his neck then, the new one that John had bought him when they couldn’t find out how to stop the bloodstains on the old one from showing up under ultraviolet light at crime scenes.

‘Yes.’ Lestrade’s voice was hard and controlled as his brow furrowed in distaste.

‘So, let’s go, then,’ Sherlock said, lowering his voice to a condescending tone that would have made any lesser man break his nose. Lestrade never had the chance, however, for as soon as Sherlock finished talking he stalked out of the door and clattered down the stairs.

John, who had watched Sherlock’s childish exit, turned back to Lestrade. The detective inspector was shaking his head, but waved his hand as John offered him the file. ‘No, keep that for the moment. Sherlock’ll probably end up wanting to read it eventually, and I’d rather have you produce it for him than have him rifling through my office at three in the morning.’

‘That is much more likely than it should be,’ said John as the two men made their way to the staircase. ‘I suppose we’ll see you there, then. Stamford Street, you said?’

‘Yeah.’ Lestrade nodded, then turned to John. ‘Wait, I’ve got a car here—’

‘Sherlock’s probably already terrorizing another cabbie as we speak. You know what he’s like.’

‘It’s not even a police car!’

Lestrade sounded just like an exasperated parent trying to understand why, exactly, their toddler wouldn’t go anywhere near broccoli.

John shrugged, and took the last two steps in one stride. ‘It’s a car with a policeman in it. It’s close enough.’

*

Sherlock charged off to meet Lestrade in front of the house in question, leaving John to fish through his pockets to find enough cash to pay the cab fare. If the detective had been likely to turn around, John would have flashed him a brash two-fingered salute, but Sherlock reached Lestrade and they were already deep in discussion as John joined them.

‘All right, Sherlock,’ said Lestrade as he pushed away from the side of his car. ‘Don’t push too hard, he’d going through a bit of a tough time, as you might expect.’ He paused, and when Sherlock’s face didn’t show any sign of softening, Lestrade appealed to John instead. “You can try to keep him in line, can’t you?’

John snorted, and shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘I have no idea where you got _that_ notion from.’

Sherlock’s mouth inched into a half-smile as Lestrade’s forced one fell. The policeman plucked his badge from his inside pocket, and glanced between his companions and the front path. ‘Just keep that in mind, Sherlock—and remember, he was at work when Nathalie disappeared. He’s not involved, as far as we can tell.’

Sherlock scoffed at the very idea, and he glanced over the run-down stone fence. ‘Not necessarily.’

John would have told him off, especially with the look Lestrade shot Sherlock, yet it was the truth. Colin Morrisson could very well be involved—it wouldn’t be the first time that a boyfriend had orchestrated a partner’s disappearance. Still, Lestrade wasn’t convinced he was some sort of criminal mastermind, and from what he’d already seen John was inclined to agree with him.

‘Come on, then,’ muttered Lestrade as Sherlock hauled himself over the low fence. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

John followed Lestrade through the rickety gate that Sherlock had ignored; flecks of paint crumbled away from the lacquered metal as John closed it behind him. The path wasn’t in much better nick, as the stone slabs cracked and creaked under their approaching feet. Weeds poked their heads around the paving stones, and some had already strangled the flowerbeds out of existence. The lawn and foliage, however, could be excused by the window boxes, which were laden with brightly coloured flowers. Just the idea that Nathalie might have tended them brought a bittersweet smile to John’s lips that slid off as soon as the rush of reality hit him.

Sherlock had waited for them to join him on the front step, but they’d barely laid a foot on the slab before he’d pressed the doorbell labelled _Morrisson/Briggs_ ; they were in a rather serious relationship, then. It was exactly the sort of thing that John would have shied away from in his university years. The knocker that they’d ignored looked antique—not that unlike their own at Baker Street, in fact—and the bright, fresh coat of Cambridge blue paint was let down simply by the age of the door.

When there was no initial response, Lestrade reached up to knock for a second time; he was halted in midair, however, by the pummeling of rapid feet against stairs. They all relaxed, but when they could identify one side of a telephone conversation, they exchanged curious glances. Sherlock even shifted his stance so that he was in a better position to hear.

‘Yeah, thanks, mate,’ came the voice, tinged with a Glaswegian accent, as it approached the other side of the door. ‘Hold on, I’ve got to go, someone’s just rung the doorbell…’

Sherlock assumed a more relaxed position as the lock creaked open, and John shot him a brief grin before the face of a young man appeared in the doorway. He was handsome, in an adolescent way, but already marked by anxiety.

Colin gave them a sympathetic smile and pointed to the phone he was holding against his ear. ‘Yeah, yeah, cheers… yup, I’ll speak to you as soon as.’

When he’d pressed the end call button on his phone, Colin looked to each of them, eventually settling on Lestrade with a glimmer of recognition. ‘DI… Lestrade, am I right? I think I spoke to one of your sergeants yesterday. Can’t say I remember her name, though.’

‘Yeah, that would have been Donovan,’ began Lestrade, and John laid a hidden hand on Sherlock’s wrist—just in case. ‘And this is Mr Holmes and Dr Watson, who are helping us with this inquiry.’

John could see flickers of emotion, of anxiety and distress, run through Colin’s mind although he concealed them well. It was his fingers running over the raised buttons of his home phone that gave his troubles away. ‘Oh, right—of course. You’d best come up then. We’ve got the upstairs flat.’

John gave him what he hoped was an encouraging  smile as he stepped across the threshold and followed Lestrade to the top of the stairs. Sherlock was too preoccupied committing the building to memory to notice that it took Colin three times to get the key in the lock.

‘Sorry about that,’ he muttered, half embarrassed and half close to tears.

Lestrade laid a hand on his shoulder as he led them into the flat, and John dreaded Sherlock’s inevitable insensitivity. Except he could understand if Colin needed _someone_ to speak to him normally without the undercurrent of pity. In those months when Sherlock had been gone, the only thing that would have come close to the feeling of having Sherlock back would have been having people speak to him like Sherlock hadn’t died.

The flat itself was small—as anything in London rented by a pair of students would be—but homely. For a moment John felt as if they must have lived there for years, yet he knew from the case file that they’d only signed the lease seven months beforehand. Colin walked into the kitchen to retrieve a half-drunk mug of tea, and both John and Lestrade declined his nonverbal offer of their own cup. Sherlock didn’t notice, as he was too busy poking around the room. The kitchen was tiny (although it was exactly the story of thing John would have given his right arm for when he lived in student digs) and surfaces that had been recently cleaned were cluttered with all manner of teacups, plates, bowls… it was understandable, really, in the circumstances.

‘Do you mind?’ John asked, indicating the empty chair at a cluttered desk near the window overlooking the street.

Colin shook his head as he eased himself onto the small, apartment-sized sofa. ‘No, please, it’s fine.’

Lestrade stepped back to lean against the wall as John sat down, and John took his silence as an invitation to start asking questions. (Not that he had any bloody idea what questions he was supposed to be asking.)

‘Bit of a gem of a place, here,’ he said, thinking it was as good a place to start as any.

‘Yeah, we were really lucky.’ Colin cleared his throat. ‘Nat and I both tried for Stamford Street accommodation in our first year. We didn’t get it—high demand, see? I ended up in Hampstead. _Really_ shit commute. I wouldn’t have met her, though, otherwise, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain.’

‘How did you two meet, then?’

‘She had a mate on the same hall as me. I think she ended up spending more time up with us than she did at Great Dover Street.’ Colin chuckled at the memory, although by the looks of it it hadn’t done anything to dull the pain.

John returned his smile as best he could. ‘And you’re both at King’s on the Strand?’

‘Yeah. We got a bit screwed over with the accommodation there, didn’t we?’ he replied with a laugh that was hollow but not entirely cold. ‘Nat finishes her degree this year. I’ve got another one to go get before I get my LLB. She planned to stay on at the RA until I’d finished and then we’ll decide where to go from there.’ His voice thinned and trembled as he recalled their plans for the future. ‘Sorry—’

‘Don’t be,’ said John quickly as he heard Sherlock muttering in the next room—the bedroom, he assumed. ‘Has Nathalie been working at the RA long?’

‘She started volunteering in our second year. They took her on not long after for an exhibition that needed a few pairs of extra hands.’

‘Lucky.’

‘She’s bloody brilliant.’ Colin’s voice was harder, gradually becoming more brittle, as it thickened around the emotion he was hiding in his throat. His hand clenched around the handle of his mug, and John had a funny feeling that compelled him to look away, as if what was happening in front of him was not for public viewing. ‘Bloody— _brilliant_.’

The cracking of the young man’s soft voice was so much more painful than if he’d shouted.

John was saved the trouble of crafting some carefully constructed placation by Lestrade’s decision to enter the conversation. 

‘Do you mind me asking,’ he said, after he had taken up residence in one of the armchairs wedged against the wall, ‘who you were speaking to on the phone when we rang the bell?’

‘Oh, that was Ben,’ Colin gestured vaguely towards the phone with his mug, his grip slackening. ‘Old mate of mine. He offered to come down from Glasgow to keep me company until…’

Until what? John knew there were only two options—well, three, really, if you counted the possibility that they could get absolutely nowhere on the case. That was it then: success, death or nothing.

Any silence that was full of unanswered questions couldn’t possibly survive Sherlock’s arrival, however, and he always had had an uncanny ability to choose the worst possible time to shove his foot into his mouth. This time, he didn’t even initially make the effort to bring more than his head and shoulders into the room before he began his dry commentary.

‘Congratulations,’ he began, with just one degree too many of sarcastic humour. ‘You’re a perfectly dull, ordinary couple.’

Colin frowned as his head snapped to look at Sherlock, and Lestrade let out a bated breath—there was no point in hoping Sherlock would keep his thoughts to himself anymore. He’d put his foot in it, though perhaps not as badly as he could have done. John wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if that was Sherlock’s way of being sensitive. Still, in any case, John had mastered the art of damage control years ago. First with Harry— _bloody_ Harry—and now with Sherlock, who probably the man with the least emotional intelligence in the world. Why would Jennifer Wilson still be upset about her stillborn daughter, indeed. For God’s sake.

‘This is Sherlock. You're allowed to have the initial reaction of wanting to punch him in the face,’ he said, and he paused as Colin actually let out a small, barking laugh. He smiled, and lowered his voice in pseudo-secrecy. ‘It's like he's read the handbook on human behaviour but doesn’t understand the instructions.’

Lestrade’s professionalism didn’t survive that one, and Sherlock cocked an eyebrow in John’s direction as he moved his entire body into the room. John just shrugged. There wasn’t really anything else for him to say, was there?

The insult didn’t prevent Sherlock from launching into an explanation—there probably wasn’t anything that could. He held out his hand, his fingers taut and reaching, in the direction from which he came.

‘You share a bedroom. One side of the bed is more indented than the other, so you habitually take the same side; routine. Familiarity. Your bedside tables tell the same story. You can’t see the surface on one, it’s covered in bottles of hand cream and lip balm and one or two bottles of perfume, a heavily mauled copy of Alan Bennett’s _Untold Stories_ and a half-empty bottle of Evian. Her’s, obviously; yours is just a glass of water and a Terry Prachett novel. Bit stereotypical, but I suppose it works for you.’

‘And that’s him being polite,’ John muttered under his breath as Sherlock took in the air needed to continue his speech.

‘Wardrobe, the same thing. Maybe sixty percent hers. Sixty-five, give and take. That desk, though,’ he said, pausing to turn around and point another finger at where John was sitting. ‘That’s one hundred percent Nathalie’s, isn’t it?’

Colin blanched, and his voice was more of a croak than anything else when he finally did speak. ‘Yeah.’ 

John glanced over his shoulder at the small wooden table that he was leaning against; he’d noted when he’d sat down that it wasn’t especially tidy, but when he took a closer look it was actually mostly very well organized. Everything seemed to have its place around the edge of the table, not a pen out of place. Yet the centre of the desk was covered in what John could only assume were Nathalie’s research and revision materials. A notebook was left open, its cover hanging off the corner, as was a large reference textbook. There almost wasn’t room for the other one, perched on another corner with a pen marking the page. Her laptop found its place somewhere inbetween them, the small green light of the charger glowing through the thin piece of paper that lay on top of it; she’d attached a post-it note to the machine that read _Contact Ruth Beake before 4pm Fri_. That handwriting was the same as the one that covered their large whiteboard of a calendar, which covered both her and Colin’s colour-coded schedules.

Sherlock didn’t notice John’s sudden realisation of his environment. ‘If that’s all hers, then where do you get your work done? You are _both_ students, after all.’

‘I can work anywhere, but Nat likes her work to have its place.’

‘You’re a bit like him then,’ John said, thrusting his head backwards towards where he knew Sherlock still stood. ‘He still claims he does the best of his thinking when he’s sitting completely upside down.’

Sherlock ignored him, although John did catch Lestrade shoot the consulting detective an odd look. ‘You’ve got more prints and posters up than pictures of yourselves and your families or your friends. Not as self-obsessed as most—’

‘If we’re going by that, Sherlock, that would make you the least self-obsessed man that ever lived, and somehow I don’t think that that’s true,’ said John, catching Colin’s eye and mouthing a short apology. The student shook his head with a slight smile; Sherlock may have been brusque, but there was always something about seeing someone being taken down a peg or two. Or, you know, half a peg, in this case. 

‘—and you’re dreadfully boring because you’re _comfortable._ You’d be much more interesting if you were likely to be involved. _’_ Sherlock paused as Colin extended a hand and opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t give him much of a change to contribute. ‘Oh, I do hope you’re not going to start shouting at me for suggesting you were considered a possible suspect. Why are people always surprised? It’s _logical_.’

‘No, no, it’s fine. I—I understand. I’m not about to make it harder for you to do your job,’ said Colin as he let his hand fall into his lap while the other pushed his now-empty mug onto the empty corner of Nathalie’s desk. He sighed heavily, staring at his empty hands. ‘After all, wouldn’t that just slow you down?’

‘Hmm. Funny, that. Normally, people go mad.’ Sherlock actually seemed surprised, all wide eyes and raised eyebrows. 

‘Sherlock,’ John warned.

‘I think I’ve got all I can from here,’ Sherlock said, ignoring both John and Colin as he turned to speak to Lestrade. ‘I’ll need to retrace her steps. I think John and I can take it from here.’

He didn’t give Lestrade a chance to think about a response, and they could all hear his steps on the stairs in the foyer before an impatient shout of ‘John!’ reached their ears.

‘I do…’ John began, even though he knew that the words were inadequate for everything about the situation. ‘…apologize.’

Then there really was nothing else to say, for they were all climbing to their feet and avoiding each other’s gazes; Sherlock did that to people. _Look at you, all happy. It’s not decent._

Lestrade was saying something to Colin, though John wasn’t paying attention to what the exact words were. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard them before. Sherlock would have called it sentiment, and it was, because that was what this was. One big, massive pile of _sentiment_. All crime was, one way or another.

Sherlock was nowhere to be seen when Colin walked them to the open doorway; the front door was slightly ajar, however, and John could feel a slight breeze. For a moment, he considered apologizing, but there was only so much saying sorry that one person could do. Instead, he turned to give Colin a resigned smile. ‘I know it doesn’t seem like it, but he is brilliant.’

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t be working with him if he wasn’t,’ said Colin, his fingers curling around the doorknob. ‘Look, I—’ He leant against the doorframe, struggling to find the right words. ‘I know you can’t promise, but—’

Lestrade saved him the trouble of trying to explain himself; he didn’t need to, after all. ‘We’re trying. We’re trying our _damnedest_ , and we’ll keep trying.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t thank us yet,’ replied Lestrade with a darkness to his voice that shouldn’t have been comforting. Yet, in some way, it was; there was little else that could suggest his dedication to his job. He wouldn’t be happy unless they’d got a result. Maybe they wouldn’t get a good one, but he wouldn’t leave it hanging. That was possibly worse than death itself—the not knowing. The lack of closure. The lack of _everything_.

Colin chewed on his bottom lip, and nodded. Lestrade returned the gesture, and the two of them made their way down the stairs as the door closed behind them.

*

Every time John looked at the decorated windows leading to the university’s reception desk, he was sure that Susan Hill’s portrait was watching him. He put that down to Harry’s particularly terrifying childhood rendition of _The Woman in Black_ and continued to push through the throngs of students milling about in front of the building. Sherlock plowed ahead, and John could only follow him with mumbled apologies of ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’ as he kept the distinctive coattails in sight. One or two of the students did double takes and gawped at Sherlock as he swept past them, and glanced with only slightly less awed gazes at John as he followed. It didn’t bother him that much, apart from the fact that it made being a private detective that little bit more difficult.

What _did_ give John cause for concern was the hushed whispers that erupted as soon as they’d both moved on. With some groups the gossip was so furious that John could easily pick out words over the busy traffic of the Strand.

‘ _Bachelor_ John Watson!’ 

‘D’you reckon they get up to anything?’

‘God, that Sherlock, _phwoar_!’

‘Really? I don’t see it…’

‘He’s bloody brilliant.’

‘That John is adorable—’

John would have been shocked if it didn’t make complete sense that students and teenagers would find their blogs. After all, all those thriller and mystery series that everyone went mental for were just fictionalizations of the life they lived. Except they weren’t half as good, because they didn’t have Sherlock—and really, what was a murder investigation without relentless sarcasm and occasional tantrums?

John emerged from the clumps of students to find Sherlock waiting for him, leaning heavily on the door hand with an inscrutable expression. John opened his mouth to speak but Sherlock dismissed him by opening the door and charging into the reception.

‘They notice,’ John called after him as he caught the door and followed the detective. 

Sherlock smirked as his eyes darted around the room, the two halves of his face operating on almost entirely different agendas. ‘I noticed.’

‘You’re a little bit more than famous now you’ve cheated death,’ John continued as he fiddled with the pamphlets on the desk within his reach. ‘People will talk. People _are_ talking.’

‘What else do they ever do?’ 

John snorted. ‘Speculate.’

‘And generally arrive at the wrong conclusion. I do not follow your concern.’

No, John reckoned Sherlock wouldn’t. 

_It bothers you. What people say. About me? I don’t understand—why would it upset_ you _?_

John shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

Sherlock made a sound that plainly said, _when don’t I_? before walking towards the rear of the building and peering into the courtyard. John had no idea what Sherlock was was seeing or what on earth he was looking for, but he pocketed a few leaflets just in case. You never knew what would come in handy, after all. 

John watched the students outside through the windows as Sherlock poked around all the desks, rudely cutting off one of the perfectly polite receptionists when she asked him if he needed any help. John turned around at that, forcing down his amused smile as he shot her an apologetic glance. It was funny, really; before, he would probably have made some sort of pass. Not an obvious one, just a gentle insinuation that she could choose to ignore if she wanted to. Now, he had no such inclination. For a while, he _had_ wondered—wondered whether or not he would occasionally feel twangs of want, or pulses of attraction. It seemed, however, that he didn’t. So, instead of his gaze lingering of the pretty blonde sat at her desk, it settled comfortably on Sherlock, who was peering at a list of names posted next to the lifts.

There was a clatter of feet as a group of students clambered down the nearby staircase and crashed through the doors. Something about the sudden intrusion of such noise made John jump, and he watched the group of students—all coming from the same place from the looks of it, probably the restaurant on the top floor since it was just about past lunchtime—make their way towards the front doors.

John moved out of their way and sidled up to where Sherlock was still examining the plaque on the wall. What could have been so interesting about a list of names and on which floor you could find their offices escaped John, for although he could understand giving it a cursory glance to make note of any names one recognized, Sherlock was reading through it as if it was compelling book. John stood at his shoulder, and their coats brushed as the taller man pulled himself to his full height.

‘Her personal tutor’s office is on the sixth floor. She met with her just after lunch, then—’

‘Sherlock Holmes? _The_ Sherlock Holmes?’

John turned around to see one of the students that had appeared through the doorway to the stairs walking towards them, his bag hoisted onto one shoulder and his eyes twinkling with a barely contained excitement. He nudged Sherlock’s side with his elbow, and the detective shot him a half-exasperated look before he followed John’s gaze and groaned.

Either ignoring or missing the distinct signals that said neither man was really open to initiating conversation, the student advanced towards them undeterred.

‘Seth. Seth Huxtable. Glad to meet you—and you too, Dr Watson,’ said the student, offering his hand genially to the both of them.

There was a split second too long in the pause between when he’d offered his hand and when Sherlock had reached out to shake it. Anyone with half an ounce of observational skill would have noticed it. However, it seemed that this Seth Huxtable was suffering from a chronic lack of sense.

‘Investigating, are we?’

‘Oh, God,’ said Sherlock, the words mostly made up of the heavy sigh that escaped his lips as it became clear that Seth wasn’t about to be satisfied with a mere handshake and congenial greeting.

John intervened before Sherlock could say anything _too_ cutting. ‘I’m afraid that’s not something that we can discuss.’

‘Ah, right, got you,’ Seth answered, tapping his forefinger to his nose with a knowing smile.

‘Though I suppose you couldn’t tell us if you recognize the name Nathalie Briggs, do you?’ John asked, trying in earnest to distract the young man enough so that Sherlock could get on with whatever he was getting on with. Plus, he supposed it couldn’t hurt to ask around about Nathalie herself. ‘She’s a third-year student here.’

Seth thought for a moment before shaking his head. ‘No, can’t say I recognize the name. I’m only in my first year, anyway. All the faces and names I recognize are either my flatmates or people off of my lectures.’

‘Oh, well then—’

Seth cut him off, obviously sensing that John was trying to get rid of him. ‘I just wanted to say that your blogs are wicked, really brilliant stuff. Obviously your work, too, solving all those crimes for the police. Bloody idiots, eh? And how can I leave out Sherlock’s quote-on-quote death and resurrection? Absolute genius!’

‘Yeah, cheers, thanks.’

John was reaching the end of his rope; was there no polite way to tell this guy to bugger off? Most people wouldn’t dream of approaching the famously unaccommodating Sherlock Holmes, and those who would should have had the presence of mind to think that if they were in the middle of an investigation, they didn’t want to be interrupted. Hell, both John and Sherlock would have preferred it if they were never interrupted—ever—but there was a price to pay for being well-known. It got you clients, and it got you admirers. Both tended to take up their time, but one group had the exclusive rights to wasting their time. Especially when there was a young woman who had disappeared a little over thirty-six hours beforehand, and they were running out of time to feasibly find her alive.

John had already turned back to Sherlock when Seth spoke again. They exchanged a look that was close to boorish.

‘So,’ he continued on brightly, oblivious to the fact that Sherlock had turned away from him, ‘how can you tell that someone’s a compulsive liar? I mean, assuming their pants aren’t on fire.’

The student sniggered at his own joke, and John could virtually see the annoyance in the line of Sherlock’s back. Although he was truly tempted to let Sherlock have a go at the boy—as he clearly needed a good dose of reality—there really was no reason to go about it in an institution of education. Especially one that may need to cooperate with them later on in the investigation if anything popped up. He wasn’t quick enough for Sherlock, though.

‘If you’re expecting tips and tricks, you’re going to be disappointed,’ snapped Sherlock as he craned his neck to look into the courtyard, where a few more students were milling about inbetween lectures.

John, yet again, found himself saddled with chatting with Seth. ‘Look, we’re a bit busy at the moment—’

‘So, are you two together, or what?’

John was stunned into silence, and spluttered around the words that he’d almost had a chance to say.

‘Not that it’s a problem or anything,’ continued Seth, nonchalant and unaware. ‘Just wondering where the papers seem to have got all their ideas.’

John glanced between the student and Sherlock, unsure of what path to take. They knew they were together, in a sense of the word (because what Seth was really asking was whether they were shagging between cases, even if he didn’t know it) but neither of them had really thought about what they were going to do about the world outside. When it was them inside 221B, there almost wasn’t a world outside apart from Lestrade, the Met, and St Barts. They didn’t _do_ normal lives.

‘So?’ prompted Seth.

Sherlock’s face hardened and he pushed past both John and Seth as he stormed off towards the front doors, and he pointedly let the door slam behind him as he rushed out into the street.

John met Seth’s gaze as the reverberations of the slamming door echoed around the reception. ‘I—I don’t think that concerns you.’ And then, after a loaded pause, he continued with more conviction. ‘We’re colleagues.’

‘That live together.’ 

‘It does happen, you know.’

John paused, and his mouth tightened into a thin, forced smile. That should of settled the case, but Seth was having none of it. He fixed John with a look that was probably supposed to be discerning. (It wasn’t.)

John tried another tactic, one that was just as likely to backfire. Maybe this time he’d take the hint. ‘Look, it’s all a bit irrelevant when we’re working, anyway.’

Seth’s ears almost pricked, but John had already turned and was walking towards the exit through which Sherlock had left. There was an honest interest in their work, and then there was an interest in the versions of themselves that the tabloids liked to promote. This particular student, and probably the majority of the ones that were still milling about outside, were firmly in the latter camp.

He could see Sherlock outside, glancing at his watch and looking back over the heads of the students who got in the way. John caught his eye, pulled a face as he jerked his head almost imperceptibly towards Seth, who was not easily discouraged and still in pursuit.

‘Look, it was nice speaking to you and all, but—’

He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence.

Sherlock had closed the distance between himself and the glass doors of the building, and as he held one open with one hand, he clasped the other around John’s shirt and pulled him to his chest. They would have smashed noses if John hadn’t been good with his reflexes, and in the next instant Sherlock’s lips were on his in pursuit of a hard and persistent kiss. John made a brief noise of denial in his throat, but Sherlock’s mouth twitched into a smile on his and John found that his hand had somehow made its way inside Sherlock’s jacket.

Although initially shocked, by the time Sherlock pulled away, John found himself still stretching to keep in contact with the detective. Once he remembered himself, he let go of Sherlock’s shirt and smoothed out his own.

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow at the now-silent student. ‘Enough?’

And, with that, he swept away.

John couldn’t manage anything other than a sheepish smile as Seth stood there, gaping like a goldfish.

*

John had to jog to catch up to Sherlock, who was (uncharacteristically) waiting at the pedestrian crossing.

He wove his way through the small crowd of students and tourists on their way to Covent Garden and came to a stop next to Sherlock’s imposing silhouette. ‘Well,’ he said as he indulged in a melodramatic sigh, ‘I hope you got more than an inconvenient headline to work with back there.’

*

‘English breakfast for two, please.’

‘All right,’ said the girl behind the till as she lavished a wide smile on John’s grim countenance. ‘Anything else?’

‘Just this, thanks,’ said John, sliding a packaged sandwich across the counter.

He really was starving—he hadn’t had much time to grab a bite to eat before he’d gone to that ill-fated interview, and it was already almost three in the afternoon. He didn’t know how Sherlock did it, but even if he was shunning solid food, he’d appreciate a cuppa. For a moment John had felt conflicted about ordering his normal brew—Sherlock had probably been weaned on Darjeeling, after all—but he reckoned Sherlock would drink anything as long as he didn’t have to make it.

‘That’ll be eleven pounds fifty, please.’

The cashier’s voice pulled John away from this rumbling stomach, and he reached into an inside pocket to retrieve his wallet. As he picked out the appropriate bills and coins, his fingers grazed the image of Nathalie they were keeping on them; he retained it along with his cash, and as he handed the payment over, he held out the picture with his other hand. 

‘Sorry to take up more of your time, but I’m with the Met—’ (It wasn’t exactly a lie, they were acknowledged by the Metropolitan Police as an organization this time around) ‘—and it would be a great help to our inquiries if you could tell me if you recognize this woman.’

She looked at him keenly as she shut the till with a tilt of her hip, but he seemed to have passed muster as he eyes moved to the portrait in his hand.

It wasn’t long before her face lit up. ‘Oh, of course! Large mocha, egg and cress, bag of ready salted crisps. Nathalie… Briggs, I think. I can’t say I’m awfully sure about her surname. She works with exhibitions—spends most of her breaks down here. It’s my shift, our paths normally cross.’ She paused, thinking as her tapping nails rattled against the tray inbetween them. ‘She’s not been in for a few days, though. I just assumed she was off with a cold or something.’

John nodded as he folded the picture along the creases he’d already made. ‘Did she mention anything when she was last here?’

‘Only light, perfunctory stuff, you know? She did say she was trying to catch up with some work on her dissertation. She was falling behind and had a meeting with her tutor about it next week. I’d be panicking a bit, too.’

John’s heart dropped from where it had elevated in the possibility of something useful. ‘Ah, well, thank you very much,’ he said as she held out his receipt. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

She gave him one last smile as he hoisted the tray in front of him and turned towards where Sherlock had been illegally saving a table. Sherlock had selected a table in front of one of the posters of the Royal Academy’s current exhibitions. The particular one in question bared the image of the romantic Lord Byron, looking out at them with bright, dark eyes. There was a certain resemblance between the poet and the man that sat in front of him; the main difference, however, was that Sherlock was tapping on his mobile as John maneuvered through the small amount of space that had been left available for movement. More than once he clipped someone in the shoulder blade and almost spilled all the milk. His sandwich slid to the very edge of the tray as well, and he was only able to save it by letting it drop onto the table in front of Sherlock. 

‘No sign?’ asked John as he transferred their victuals to the table and propped the tray against the wall.

‘No,’ Sherlock replied, placing his phone back in his pocket. ‘No new reports.’

John shrugged one shoulder as he slid into the vacant chair. He couldn’t say he wasn’t a little bit relieved. At least there being no news meant they couldn’t be sure they were looking for a killer—yet. There was always that black cloud hanging over these sorts of investigations. In a way, Sherlock would have been disappointed if she just showed up one day and walked back into lectures. Where was the fun in that? 

‘The girl at the till recognized her,’ started John as he gathered himself around him—there wasn’t much elbow room. ‘Apparently she spent her lunch hour—or breaks, whatever she had—here. Knows her order off by heart but only remembers her saying she had to work on her dissertation while she ate last time she saw her.’

‘Nothing revolutionary, then.’

Sherlock rested his knee against John’s under the table. John knew that it was really just because they were smooshed into a small table in a small café, and if there wasn’t enough room for him to be entirely comfortable there definitely wasn’t enough for Sherlock, but it didn’t stop him from nudging him back. Even Sherlock’s typical lack of response couldn’t remove the small smile from his face. 

‘No,’ he said as he leaned over the check the tea bags in the bot. ‘But it’s another person who can vouch for the fact that she was here, at work. She didn’t leave the building, either, so she didn’t run into anyone new at lunch.’ 

Sherlock forwent his usual eloquence for an ungainly grunt. John struggled with the packaging on his sandwich—which seemed to be fighting back—and he glanced around the room full of visitors and academics when he finally managed to take a generous bite. Sherlock rested a hand against his chin, staring somewhere slightly to the right of John’s head, and his leg entered a nervous rhythmic jiggling against John’s.

‘But, you know,’ John said as he swallowed. ‘Even though no one here knows anything _new_ , at least we can be pretty sure she didn’t meet her kidnapper here. Everyone saw her leave—and that bloke she worked with said she kept her social circles rather separate. Work friends, school friends, that sort of thing.’

Sherlock wrinkled his nose dismissively, although his eyes were still focused everywhere but John. ‘She hasn’t entirely eliminated the possibility of cross-contamination.’

‘Well, no, you _can’t_ ,’ sad John as he began to pour them their hot drinks. ‘But it does beg the question… was there another reason beyond just the natural division of friends?’

John was pouring the second cup and wondering if he’d ever been able to separate work and the rest of his life (conclusion: no) before he realised that Sherlock’s movement was actually jostling his arm. He glanced up at his companion, but Sherlock was back to being glassy-eyed with thought—not that he’d have cared that he was inconveniencing him. John made it through the milk and stirring before he finally reached out and placed a hand on Sherlock’s knee. It might have seemed a bit intimate, but all the other patrons were preoccupied with themselves and Sherlock had set a bit of a precedent, hadn’t he?

‘Sherlock,’ said John. ‘Sherlock—calm yourself, if you don’t want to be doused with scalding water.’

The movement was quelled by a gentle squeeze, although the way Sherlock had started looking at John suggested he was more annoyed than calmed. 

‘I’m not _anxious._ ’

‘Of course you’re not,’ John said as he removed his hand and pushed the cup of tea towards Sherlock’s folded hands. ‘You’re thinking. You do that from time to time.’

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow, but John smiled for both of them. ‘Go on. You think, I’ll watch.’

They only made it for about five minutes of silent contemplation and observation before Sherlock succumbed to the temptation to respond.

‘For future reference, John,’ he said from behind his china teacup. ‘The worst possible thing you can do to someone who’s panicking is to tell them to calm down.’ 

‘Sherlock, you can’t fool me. You don’t give a flying fuck about people in a panic. You just like to have the last word.’

‘Of course I do.’

John smiled, and raised his cup to his lips. ‘I think it’s safe to say we can blame your family.’ 

Sherlock’s slow smile couldn’t have been further from decent.

* 

Lestrade was painfully hopeful when they got back to New Scotland Yard. ‘What’ve we got, then?’ 

‘Nothing. Bloody _nothing_ ,’ John said from one of the chairs placed in front of Lestrade’s desk, rubbing a hand over his face. The sun was rapidly setting over the city buildings that were visible from the office’s window; some people even had their lights on already, giving any police constable or detective a good look into their living room. John glanced at one as Sherlock continued to stare at the file Lestrade had just dropped on the desk. Could Nathalie be out there, right now? In someone’s flat, safe… or in someone’s flat, and in danger?

How the _hell_ hadn’t they been able to find anything in two days? 

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Shit.’ Lestrade repeated himself, this time a bit more forcefully as he slumped into his chair.

‘Yes, yes, all right, we get the picture,’ snapped Sherlock.

‘There’s a girl out there, Sherlock!’ hissed Lestrade. ‘She—well, she could be dead for all we know as the moment, and I’d very much like it if you could do some of that CSI: Baker Street bullshit that got us to those kids!’

Sherlock’s lip curled, though John wasn’t sure whether or not it was Lestrade’s anger alone that had made it contort in such a way. After all, he’d been on the receiving end of the detective’s acerbic reprimands far too many times to count; none of them had really ever phased him at all. Then again, maybe it was the fact that Lestrade brought up _that_ kidnapping, the one that forced him out of Baker Street, the one that brought all of _his_ world crashing down.

‘Fine. Nathalie Briggs, twenty-one. Third-year student at King’s College London—Classical Studies with English. Lives with her partner, Colin Morrisson in a flat on Stamford Street. Reported missing three days ago by said partner after she didn’t come home after a meeting with her tutor and a shift at the Royal Academy. Now, we know he left the RA around five o’clock, as her supervisor can attest to. She then rang her partner and let him know that she was on the way back home and if they needed anything from Sainsbury’s. There are no witnesses that we know of who can place her anywhere else between the RA and Stamford Street. Now, she could have just walked off and decided to leave her life behind, but that’s unlikely.’

‘How’d you come to that conclusion? We can’t know for sure.’ John butted in.

‘Her _desk_ , the _calendar_. Nathalie was organized, she knew exactly what she was doing and when.’

‘Yeah, but doesn’t that just say that she could have easily orchestrated her own disappearance?’ asked John, although he knew that Sherlock would have an answer. The man always had an answer.

‘The work, on her desk. Her notebook and textbooks were out, left there as if she’d just got up to get a cup of tea. She was planning on coming back to them. Her exams are at the beginning of next month, and she’d got top marks on all of her previous end-of-year examinations. She wasn’t about to walk out without telling anyone.’

He paused, as if waiting to see if anyone else had useless interjections. When they didn’t, he took a breath and continued.

‘If she _has_ been kidnapped, it has to be somewhere on her route home. The most efficient path would be to walk from the Royal Academy towards Piccadilly Circus station, take the Tube on the Bakerloo line towards Waterloo, and walk from the station to Stamford Street. Unlikely that she’d have been taken on the Tube. In any case, it’d be on CCTV so you’d never have called us in. So somewhere between the RA and Piccadilly Circus, or Waterloo and Stamford Street.’

Lestrade jabbed a finger at the map of the area that he’d spread out on the desk. The streets in question were highlighted in garish neons, and the stations circled in thick felt-tip pen. ‘Those are busy streets. There’s always crowds, even in the evening.’ He paused. ‘ _Especially_ in the evening.’

‘Exactly!’ exclaimed Sherlock. ‘So she disappeared without anyone noticing. No one saw her and her kidnapper.’

Lestrade’s chair squeaked noisily as he leant forward. ‘Or, rather, people _did_ see them but didn’t _observe.’_

‘Oh, good. You’re catching on.’

‘Sherlock,’ warned John in a low voice.

‘Wait a moment,’ said Lestrade, waving his hand in Sherlock’s general direction. ‘Disappeared without anyone noticing, on busy streets? You’re not saying this is the cabbie again, are you?’

John looked between the two other men, eyes wide. A copycat—a fucking copycat. Was it? Could it be? Well, obviously it _could_ , but was it in this case? God, if there was someone else, someone who had just been waiting to take Moriarty’s place… someone who was just trying to get Sherlock’s attention, trying to get him to play the very game that he’d ended up losing.

To a point. After all, Sherlock was alive.

But how many times could you throw yourself off a building and survive?

Sherlock hadn’t seemed to notice their concern. ‘No. Not possible. This is only one victim, and you’ve not found her and assumed she’s committed suicide yet. Anyway, she wouldn’t have taken a cab.’

‘How the hell do you know that?’ Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose as he read through all the details in the file that lay before him, trying to find something—anything—that could give him something new to go on.

‘She’s a student. Not exactly swimming in disposable cash.’

John spoke up. ‘Doesn’t prove anything. I used to keep extra cash on me just in case I needed a cab in an emergency when I was a student.’

‘It _wasn’t_ an emergency. It was routine, John! She worked there, she’s not about to hail a cab for a small fortune when she can get student discount on Tube fare.’

Neither John nor Lestrade could fault that particular line of reasoning—not that they really wanted to. 

‘So she must have known her kidnapper. Recognized him maybe, or bumped into him on the street. She doesn’t have to know him well, just enough to inspire trust.’

Lestrade fixed Sherlock with a stern glare. ‘But _who_?’

Sherlock seemed to seize up as they posed the one question he couldn’t answer, and he moved to lean against one of the filing cabinets as he withdrew into his own thoughts.

John shifted in his seat, and leant an elbow on the arm as he took over. ‘We don’t know. There’s nothing missing. Well, obviously, there’s _someone_ missing but… everyone’s accounted for. The boyfriend, the colleagues, the fellow students, the tutors, the housemates, the landlord… everyone’s there. All of them have rock solid alibis.’ 

‘Shit.’

Lestrade pushed himself away from the edge of the desk, leaning back in his chair and running his palms over his face. It was late—later than he’d normally work—and John knew that the case was pushing the entire team. There was always something about kidnappings; they inspired a frenzy of work because, for once, they had a chance to prevent a death instead of avenge one. John focused on the unfolded map in front of him, and thought. Or, at least, tried to think. Sherlock had been thinking all day and hadn’t come up with much to show for it, so what chance did John have when he was working on three hours of sleep?

They had all turned to look at one another in the silence that had followed Sherlock’s presentation of the case. John kept a warning eye on Sherlock’s face, trying to see whether they were close to an idea or an implosion; Lestrade turned to John for a sane, logical voice in the face of their predicament; Sherlock kept his gaze fixed firmly on the detective—a challenge. A defiance. A request.

And then, the phone rang. It wasn’t the one in Lestrade’s office; rather, its shrilly tone penetrated the frosted glass walls from one of the desks that lay outside. There was a flurry of footsteps as someone rushed to answer it; Sherlock had turned to follow the shadows with narrowed eyes.

There was a pause, a stationary shadow, and then another flurry of movement—one that was tinged with a vein of impatience that was entirely different than trying to pick up a phone in time.

Sally opened the door, and pushed her head through. There was a glint in her eye of something like victory, and even Sherlock’s sneer couldn’t dampen. ‘Line 2. A criminal justice social worker in Glasgow. She says she’s got some information relating to Nathalie Briggs.’

‘Right.’ Lestrade sounded as if he was smothering the insistent hope that had jumped into his throat; John knew the feeling. He’d done it every time he’d seen someone in Sherlock’s coat. ‘Okay, thanks, Sally. I’ll see to it now.’

Sally gave them all a curt nod—even Sherlock, to his dismay—and backed out of the doorway before shutting the door with a snap. Lestrade’s hand hovered over the phone for a brief moment, before he picked it up and pressed what John presumed was the speakerphone button.

‘DI Lestrade speaking.’

The speakers in the grey phone crackled to life. ‘Um, hello. I’m Jane Finley, and I think I might know something about Nathalie Briggs. Well, not really _her_ but it might be relevant.’

‘What sort of thing are we talking about here, Ms Finley?’ asked Lestrade as he leafed through the piles of paper and empty coffee cups on his desk trying to find a pen and paper. 

‘I saw the appeal on news this evening. Now, I’ve never _met_ Nathalie Briggs, but one of my parolees has. That’s why I recognized her name—’

Lestrade was scribbling down the information on the back of an envelope, which Sherlock was eyeing with disdain. ‘ _Parolee_?’

‘Yeah, a Ben Wright. I’ve been working with him for a while. He’s only young, twenty-one, should really be in university but he’s convinced it’s not for him. Anyway, he’s been on the receiving end of some public order convictions…’

‘Which ones?’

There was a small rustle of paper, as if she was checking her details. ‘Public intoxication, criminal damage, harassment.’

‘Right, okay. And what _exactly_ does he have to do with Nathalie Briggs?’

‘Ben knows Nathalie. He must know her rather well, actually. I assume you know that if you’re going to miss a meeting with your parole officer you have to let them know? Well, last year, Ben was going to visit one of his friends who’s going to school in London and put his name—Colin Morrisson—and Nathalie Briggs’ name down as contacts. That’s how I recognized it. At the time I’d just assumed that this Nathalie was his mate’s girlfriend but I hadn’t given it any thought until her name was on my television—’

‘All right, Ms Finley, this is extremely helpful. Is there anything else—?’ 

‘Yes. Yes, there definitely is. You see, Ben’s missed several of the meetings he’d scheduled with me in the past few weeks. He’s not necessarily in Glasgow at the moment. It’s not that odd to have some of the people miss meetings, but with that plus _this…_ well, it just struck me as odd, Detective.’

‘Thank you very much, Ms Finley. You’ve been brilliant. Is it possible for you to get his file sent down to London?’

‘I think so. I may have to go into the office to do it though, so it might not be until morning.’

‘Do what you can. Thank you, again.’ 

And with that, Lestrade pressed a button on the phone and silenced the crackling line.

‘ _Now_ we’ve got something,’ said Lestrade with a smile creeping across his face, underlining several of the details that he’d scribbled down in his indecipherable hand.

Sherlock seemed to have been shocked into life, pacing back and forth in Lestrade’s small office when he’d spent the entirety of the call so still that John wasn’t sure if he was even breathing. ‘She would have seen him as a friend as he approached her. He needn’t have made her kidnap secret. They could have walked off just about anywhere. She wouldn’t have known what was happening until it was too late. It’s _perfect._ ’

‘Sherlock.’

The consulting detective stopped in his tracks and met John’s gaze over his shoulder. ‘Not good?’

John almost smiled at Sherlock’s bewildered face, but it was impossibly to interrupt the flow of his revelation. ‘No, Sherlock—the name! Remember when we were waiting for Colin to answer the door? He was on the phone, and then later he said that his mate Ben had just caught a train to London.’

‘ _Oh_!’

‘Yes, _oh_ is just about right.’

‘Ben Wright was already in London.’ Sherlock’s eyes gleamed. ‘He’s been here for ages, hasn’t he?’ 

There was a moment of stillness as they all looked at each other, and it shattered into thousands of pieces as Lestrade jumped to his feet and rushed into the incident room. 

‘Donovan! We’re looking for a Ben Wright…’


	9. Chapter 9

Sherlock had wanted to go straight back to Piccadilly once they knew about Ben Wright.

John only just managed to convince him to wait until the next morning—not that that was very far away. With the promise that it would be more authentic in the morning (more akin to the afternoon rush that Nathalie would have had to fight her way through on her way to the tube station), Sherlock had acquiesced to John’s request to return to Baker Street for sleep and sustenance. For a moment John thought Sherlock had caught some sort of terrible superbug, as he accepted a piece of cheese on toast without arguing, though John decided not to try his luck by bringing it up.

Later, Sherlock had lain on the bed beside him—shoes and suit and all—with his legs crossed at the ankle as he sketched out scenario after scenario in that notebook of his. If John had been any other man, or if he hadn’t been dragged around London at a breakneck pace for two days straight, he wouldn’t have been able to sleep. But somehow the scratch of Sherlock’s pen on paper was comforting; even his mutterings and grumbles offered something in the way of a lullaby. John fell asleep with the vibrations of _that_ voice in his ears.

He hadn’t slept for long, though. He’d barely had four hours when Sherlock roused him. John wasn’t properly awake until they whizzed past Oxford Street. Once or twice, John had let his head loll onto Sherlock’s shoulder, ignoring their usual distance in cabs. The bloody madman had kissed him in the public reception of a university building; surely John could get his own back in his own way. Then, all of a sudden, he was being hauled out of a cab. He hoped Sherlock managed to pay the fare, because in the next minute he found himself in the courtyard of the Royal Academy leaning against a sign detailing a future exhibition.

Sherlock had just started working off his excess adrenaline in the only way he knew how: deduction.

He’d jogged up the stairs to the front doors, peered inside, and been on the receiving end of a perturbed look from a concerned security guard when he finally began speaking. At first it was to himself, which earned Sherlock another uneasy glance, and only when he seemed to have committed the area to his mind palace did he turn back to John’s expectant gaze.

‘Go on, then,’ said John, vaguely gesturing around their surroundings. He really could have done with a cup of tea before he was required to do this much coherent reasoning. ‘Get on with it.’

‘She comes out here, by the main entrance.’ Sherlock came to a halt not far from where John was leaning, holding an arm out to indicate the glass doors behind them. ‘It’s not the quietest way out, and she probably has to have a bit of a jostle but it’s the quickest way to get to the main road. Now, she wants to ring her boyfriend; she must have done it here—quieter, easier than walking and talking in the crowds out there.’

Sherlock swung his arm around to indicate the busy road on the other side of the entrance, and then dove into the inner pocket of his coat. John glanced back towards the entrance, watching some of the early morning museum-goers make their way into the exhibition halls. He was vaguely aware of the sign straining under his weight, squeaking as he shifted his feet, but his phone’s sudden shrieking was a more pressing concern. John’s fingers were numb with cold, and he fumbled with the zip on his pocket. He was just about ready to smash the bloody thing against the cracking concrete beneath his feet when he clasped it in his palm and noticed that the caller ID read ‘Sherlock Holmes.’

But—he was standing right _there_. John glanced up and, sure enough, Sherlock was there, coat flapping and his phone pressed to his ear.

John pressed the answer call button with much more force than was necessary. ‘What?’

‘So, she’s on the phone. Tells him she’s on her way back. Asks if they need anything from Sainsbury’s.’

As far as John could tell, Sherlock was entirely oblivious to the absurdity of the situation. John felt like he could do with something from Sainsbury’s—he hadn’t eaten anything since early the previous evening—and the morning was turning out more trying than he’d expected. ‘Sherlock, just come over here and talk to me.’

He took no notice. ‘He says he’s covering someone’s shift—won’t be back for a few hours. Maybe one or two pleasantries, but if he’s at work and not on a break probably not.’

‘He did say it was a qui—quick call.’ John yawned around his words.

‘Likely to be over by this point, then.’

John was left gaping at the click and dead air as Sherlock charged out into the street.

‘Oi, _Sherlock_!’

John knew he should have probably put his phone back into a secure pocket, judging from their predilection for impromptu sprints across central London, but he settled for slipping the thing into his back jeans pocket as he stepped out into the thickening crowd. He should have been able to spot Sherlock a mile away, since he’d had so much practice thinking he saw him on the opposite side of a bridge, but the only things that stood out to him were what looked like a group of Japanese diplomats and a woman (who looked uncannily like Anthea) carrying one too many Fortnum & Mason bags. Sherlock, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen.

Just as John decided to walk down the street in the hope that Sherlock would pop up eventually, someone or something barreled into him from behind. He turned towards whoever bumped into him, expecting to produce a string of almost-sincere apologies, but was greeted instead by what was probably Sherlock’s most sarcastic face. John could have laughed—in a way, his half-arsed plan had worked.

‘Oh, hello, fancy seeing you here!’ Sherlock sounded like someone entirely different for a moment, although exactly who he was mimicking was unclear. Still, John was glad when the detective’s face looked like Sherlock again—he’d spent too long looking at people who were _almost_ Sherlock.

‘He bumps into her. It seems like a fortuitous accident to her, but he’s probably been waiting somewhere else until five. I had Lestrade check if her schedule changed within the past year—it hasn’t—so he must have known when she was due to leave.’

‘Holed up at the bar in the Ritz, was he?’ John chuckled—god, he needed something to eat.

‘ _John_.’

The doctor held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘All right, all right.’

‘So he waits. He’s scared of cutting it a bit close, though, so he makes his way here, leans on the walls until he sees her come out. Then wham—catches her attention. They fall into conversation—hello, how are you, it’s been so long, et cetera. He endears himself with her.’

‘But she already knows him,’ said John as he moved them both out of the bustling crowd. Sherlock didn’t seem to notice that he’d been moved, and followed John’s lead—but not without shooting an annoyed glance at a businessman who dared to bump into his shoulder.

‘Extra buttering up never hurts. Have you ever bumped into someone you hadn’t seen in months and immediately asked if they wanted to go somewhere with you?’

John recalled the first time he’d seen Mike Stamford after Afghanistan. ‘Right, right. Okay. You’re right.’

‘Now, he needs to get her alone. The least conspicuous question to ask would be if she wanted to have a coffee with him, and he’d have the pick of any of the twenty-odd coffee shops on this street. That would get them both off the street, but they wouldn’t be alone. If anything, a coffee shop would make any odd behavior more obvious. So where’s the most convenient place that they will be left alone?’

John glanced up and down the street, looking for anywhere that could be called secluded, but when he turned back to where Sherlock had been, the air was empty. He caught the swoosh of coattails out of the corner of his eye, and he had to break into a run to catch up with Sherlock’s stride. When he did end up side-by-side with the detective, he didn’t need to prompt him for an explanation.

‘ _Green Park_ , John! Privacy in an open place. All he’d have to do was keep walking around until they reached a stretch of path where they were on their own. Not perfect, a bit risky, but it’s the best he can do with the resources he has.’

‘Is it that likely she’d just agree to go with him? It’s a bit out of her way, and she’d just told Colin she’d be on her way home.’

‘And he’d just told her he was covering someone else’s shift,’ said Sherlock, turning away from the foot traffic under the covered pavement in front of the Ritz and through the entrance to Green Park. ‘She could walk through the park, and continue on to St James’s Park or Victoria. Her journey home wouldn’t be as straightforward as it would have been from Piccadilly Circus—she’d have to change at Westminster, either way. It doesn’t matter if she’s a bit later than she said.’

John nodded; Sherlock’s explanation made sense. ‘So, they’re in the park. What next?’

Sherlock eyed the joggers that had been coming towards them, and slowed his pace as they passed. John fell into step beside him. A group of overenthusiastic tourists pouring over a map looked as if they were about to ask for directions; Sherlock’s obvious sullen annoyance, however, put them off the idea rather quickly. Once they’d left earshot, they were left with a stretch of gravel path that was otherwise unoccupied.

‘He threatens her,’ said Sherlock, ‘once they’ve got a bit of path to themselves.’

‘Could we be a little more specific?’

‘He might have used a knife—it would suit his previous convictions—but it’s not threatening _enough_. They’re in a public area. She’d could’ve waited until someone got close enough and made a run for it. No, a gun’s more likely. More threatening, at close range _and_ at a distance.’

John was glancing around the rest of the grassy park then, hands twitching against nothing as he thought about what Sherlock had to say. He barely noticed when there was suddenly another body closer to him than there had been before, and it was only when he felt warm breath against his neck that he realised the trap. Sherlock pressed his fingers into John’s lower back, insistent and threatening even through his heavy knit. The barrel of a gun would have been even more so.

‘No one’s going to argue when there’s a gun in his hand,’ Sherlock continued, his hand unrelenting. He would have been speaking directly into John’s ear if it wasn’t for the height difference, and the intimacy of it only made the pressure more alarming.

‘All he’d have to do is lead her off,’ Sherlock continued, jumping away from John’s back and grasping his upper arm in one smooth motion. He pulled him roughly forward.

‘Wait, _wait_ , Sherlock—’ said John, attempting to tug his arm away from Sherlock’s dexterous fingers. ‘It’s a bit obvious, that, isn’t it? Anyone with an ounce of social responsibility would at least notice a man manhandling a woman. Some might even come over and try to give her a hand.’

‘And he needs nobody to notice them…’ murmured Sherlock, his fingers flexing against John’s arm as he thought. ‘Fine. He takes her hand, then,’ he said, taking John’s in his own as he said the words. ‘Makes it seem like they’re a couple, on an evening walk through the park. All he’d need was a cab once they’d got to the road.’

The cool leather of Sherlock’s gloves slipped easily against John’s hand as he pulled him forward, the long strides easily eating two of John’s smaller ones. He let Sherlock walk with his thoughts, and tried to smother the smile that was threatening to consume his mouth as he glanced down to their joined hands. Of course it would take the reenactment of a kidnapping to get Sherlock to take his hand of his own accord. The man was positively mad. But John didn’t mind, and he squeezed Sherlock’s hand affectionately before letting go.

After all, they had a case to solve.

*

The detective inspector had rung them when they were halfway back to Baker Street with the news that the file on Ben Wright had arrived, and Sherlock had barked at the cabbie to reroute towards New Scotland Yard and sent John in to retrieve the paperwork. In any other situation, John would have objected to being treated like an extra-masculine version of Anthea (or whatever her name was this week), but Sherlock wouldn’t give him a moment’s peace until he had the file. If he had to play secretary, so be it. John had barely been given chance to sit down before the cab sped away from the kerb, and Sherlock had been lost in thought the entire way back. He’d only snapped out of it when John had left him to pay the fare—again.

‘Full name, Benjamin James Wright,’ said John as he balanced the open file in the crook his arm. Both his hands were, of course, occupied with steaming mugs of tea. Lestrade would have his head if he ended up with any spillage, but he was gasping and it was somehow worth the risk.

Sherlock had sprawled himself across the entire length of the soda, barely even taking enough time to remove his coat and shoes before slinging them in the general direction of his armchair. John bent down and left one mug on the floor within Sherlock’s reach (the coffee table was invisible under a mound of newspapers and police files) even though it would probably go untouched. John knew; Sherlock had that sort of face on.

John perched on the arm of the sofa, looking for somewhere to put his tea. They were severely lacking in clear surfaces—probably due for a bollocking from Mrs Hudson, then—and he ended up nudging a stack of books off the windowsill with the toe of his shoe and replacing it with his mug. Close enough.

He cleared his throat before continuing. ‘Date of birth: 19 August, 1992.’

‘Twenty.’

‘Same age as Morrisson. Same town, too, like he said—Glasgow.’

‘Couldn’t you tell?’

‘ _Sherlock_.’

John could have sworn he heard the languid smile fight its way onto Sherlock’s face, and there was a scrape of ceramic against wood as he picked up his drink. There was scuffling, too, as he readjusted his position against the leather cushions; Sherlock ended up resting his feet on the small of John’s back, supporting him. He kneaded the woolen sweater that John had hastily pulled over his button-down like a cat settling down in its bed. John smiled to himself; Sherlock really was quite feline.

‘Dennistoun, even, to be more specific,’ he John as Sherlock found a knot in his lower back that’d been bothering him since the beginning of the entire investigation. John leaned into the pressure with a soft hum. ‘Where exactly do you want me to start?’

‘Previous convictions,’ drawled Sherlock, punctuating his demand by taking an excessive slurp of tea.

‘Right,’ John flicked through the included documentation until he arrived at the correct form. ‘A handful for public intoxication, one for harassment, two for criminal damage. Busy guy. The first public intoxication one was three years ago, but the rest cluster around the end of last year and the beginning of this one. All of them in the city centre.’

‘The criminal damage was in conjunction with those incidents.’

‘Yes. Smashed a couple of pub windows, vandalised a statue. Some poor bugger lost a bike over it.’

‘What a pity. They’re all irrelevant, anyway. Being drunk and disorderly isn’t unusual. What about the harassment?’

That particular form was much fatter than the others, held together by a strained paperclip. John began to read through the details, trying to isolate the important bits, when Sherlock gave one of his kidneys a sharp jab with his toe. ‘Ow! Unnecessary, Sherlock—no, this one’s a bit more complicated. As far as I can tell, he threatened one of his schoolmates. They weren’t at school at the time, this was well past the point when they’d have left, but the report does mention it… anyway, the incident was unrelated to the other charges. That’s what spooked the guy—he’s been put down as saying that it wasn’t unusual for Wright to get a bit intense when he’d had a few. But he hadn’t, and he went mental after a conversation about the people they went to school with. When he hadn’t cooled down after a week or so, this guy reports it and Wright gets hauled in. The friend claims he threatened violence—from the sound of it, Wright’s likely to throw the first punch or pull a knife if he fancies a go.’

‘Probation and petty fines for the intoxication and the criminal damage, then. Anything stronger on the harassment?’

‘No. The whole proceeding doesn’t seem to be closed, though. It’s only recent—March this year.’

‘Hmmm.’ Sherlock hummed, and pressed the ball of his foot into John’s left side. ‘Where did he go to school?’

‘No segue there, then,’ muttered John under his breath as he flipped back to the page with Wright’s basic information. He reached over to pick up his mug and squinted over the brim to read the small typeface. ‘Whitehill Secondary School.’

‘Same as Morrisson,’ Sherlock said, not sounding particularly surprised. ‘And primary?’

John ran his finger across the page, and said, ‘St Denis’ Primary.’

‘ _Same_ as Morrisson.’

‘They go way back, then.’

‘It appears so.’

‘Anything else?’

‘When did he come down to London the first time?’

‘To visit Colin and Nathalie, you mean?’ John flipped back to the appropriate page as he spoke, and ran a finger down the lines of text before answering. ‘The last week of January and the first week of February, last year.’

‘And Morrisson’s most likely been back up to Scotland in the school holidays—at Christmas, at least, everyone goes stupidly sentimental over December.’

John half-closed the file, and frowned as he looked past his now-empty mug down onto the street below. ‘Didn’t Lestrade say Colin mentioned to Sally he’d had his mum on the phone? She’d only just met Nathalie at Christmas.’

‘Ben Wright was there as well.’

‘Looks like it.’

Then there was silence, if John discounted the slurping. He let Sherlock think as he gave himself time to process the information in the file, although from the way Sherlock had managed to knead the exact muscles in his lower back that kept giving John gyp, he was having a bit of trouble absorbing anything except that feeling. That… feeling, not just of relief but of pressure—pressure that proved Sherlock was there in the proper sense of the word. He wasn’t just sat there, alone and along for the ride. He was there with him, supporting in the most literal of ways, and he wanted to be there… even when there were cases like the one in his hands to deal with.

John hadn’t even realised he’d closed his eyes until there was a whoosh and a thump, and he opened them to find his feet at a higher altitude than his head and a crackling feeling in several places down his spine. The file he’d been balancing in his palm was splayed across his chest, and there was a mangled paperclip just a little too close to his eye. He turned his head towards the rest of the sitting room and Sherlock was on his feet, shrugging on his coat. He’d even managed to toe on his shoes while John was stunned.

‘You are _very_ lucky,’ John began as his had grappled for purchase against the smooth leather cushions, ‘that I was not holding a cup of tea.’

Sherlock smirked as he pulled on his scarf. ‘I fail to see how that would affect me. It would have gone all over _you_ , not _me_.’

‘Do we need to have the conversation about my being a solider again?’ John gave up on his attempt to prop himself up on a cushion, and hooked his legs around the arm of the sofa. ‘Or as that particular matter been settled?’

Sherlock turned to face him properly, fully done up, and the smirk that occupied one half of his mouth tumbled into a smile that took up half his face. John suddenly found it easier to find the humour in being a thirty-eight year old man unceremoniously dropped flat on his back.

‘You great _sod_.’

Sherlock ignored his smiling, chuckling insults, and padded forwards, bending over to bring himself level with John’s altered eyeline. ‘I have to do some… investing,’ he said in that voice of his, and when he plucked an image of Ben Wright from the pile of documents littering John’s torso there really was no way for John to argue. And from the way his smile widened, Sherlock knew it.

The bloody pillock.

Then he was gone, a clatter on the stairs and a crash at the door instead of a man. John returned his gaze to the off-white ceiling, which was probably the only thing in the entire flat that didn’t mind the silly smile plastered all over his face. In fact, he wasn’t sure if _he_ minded or not, but there was just something about their entire situation that was just so absurd that there was no reason not to grin like a buffoon at the mere fact that it worked at all—even if Sherlock would have been scathing about it.

John did realise after a short while that he was just lying on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, at nine in the morning, and his oft-misplaced sense of duty forced him to tidy up the mess lying on top of him. It didn’t extend to being careful with the reassembled folder; John ended up chucking it on top of whatever was on the side table. It would be Sherlock’s fault if it sprouted ears or spontaneously combusted, after all.

But as tempted as he was to catch forty winks and just not move until Sherlock came back and hauled him somewhere, John reckoned he’d better pull himself together and work. (At what, he didn’t quite know, but he’d figure something out.)

Except, when he pushed against the cushions and tried to heave himself up, something creaked in his back and something else cracked. The sounds repeated as he gingerly lowered himself back down, and John concluded that it was probably best if he gave it a rest—for a bit. He lowered his hand and fished around until his fingers connected with the ceramic of the mug, and there was more than enough tea left for an adequate tea break.

Just—just a little one.

*

Half a cup had turned into two, and two had turned into four before John heard the front door open. A bit of toast had snuck in somewhere, as well, but he wasn’t going to mention that. He wasn’t going to draw attention to the large pile of boxes (one of which rattled just a little eerily) he’d had to move to the center of the room so he’d have enough room for his laptop on the table, either. His phone was somewhere there, too, but in all likelihood it had been swallowed by the perpetual black hole of mess. He’d have to get that back, somehow.

Sherlock came through the open door with a critical eye but didn’t say a thing. Instead, he went about unwrapping himself from the slightly unnecessary layers of his scarf and coat. The blazer even disappeared behind the back of the sofa, thanks to Sherlock’s flippant aim. Just another casualty in the futile war against clutter.

‘Find them, then?’ John asked as he saw Sherlock move towards him out of the corner of his eye.

‘Mmm.’ Sherlock ignored the fact that John was sat in his way and reached over his head to rifle through the papers than John had gathered in the hours they’d been apart. Sherlock made small grunts of frustration when he didn’t immediately find what he was looking for, and John smiled as he tapped away on the his keyboard.

‘Looking for this?’ he asked as he produced a file from his lap, holding it up in front of Sherlock’s face.

John smiled and turned his chair around as Sherlock seized the folder and removed it from his grasp. ‘Some thanks wouldn’t go amiss.’

Sherlock’s lip curled as he balanced the file on the mantlepiece and searched for the blue-tack they’d started keeping in the skull. ‘Boring.’

‘Why am I not surprised?’ John replied with a soft chuckle. He turned back to his laptop, resigned to the fact Sherlock would probably be silent and half-brooding for the next God knows how many hours, but a note that looked like it’d been written by a chicken with only half as many claws as it was supposed to have caught his eye. ‘Oh, Sherlock—’

‘Mmhm?’

He had the pack of blue-tack in his mouth, then, and was pressing a map to the edge of the mirror with both of his hands. If there was ever a time when Sherlock should have looked at least little bit ridiculous, that should have been it. Except he didn’t, and it wasn’t.

‘Lestrade rung about an hour after you left,’ John continued, rolling the still-sticky part of paper inbetween his fingers as he read. ‘They’ve spoken to the guy involved in the harassment case—Dan Robinson.’

‘He’s the one that lodged the complaint.’

‘Yeah, the very same. Turns out the Met wanted to know a bit more about the circumstances around that particular complaint, and Robinson says that the conversation that set Wright off was one about Colin’s relationship. Well, not _just_ that, more like where all of them had got to since school. He couldn’t really say what particular bit pissed him off. Just that he was all right when they started and wasn’t when they stopped.’

‘That’s generally how arguments go.’

‘Yes, well, it wasn’t really an _argument_ , was it?’ John decided to drop that particular train of thought before they had another domestic that Mrs Hudson would feel obligated to come and fix, so he switched to another avenue. ‘Robinson also mentioned that it was Ben who was the troublemaker at school. Colin was generally involved as well—as mates are, I suppose—but he was reliable. Resourceful, and in a different way than Ben was. Robinson said, and I quote, _no wonder Colin got himself such a nice bird and settled down so quickly. He’s always been that sort of bloke, ever since I met him_.’

‘How positively banausic.’

John didn’t think it was quite that bad, but pressed on anyway. Sherlock was running out of things to pin to the mirror, so the likelihood of him listening was decreasing by the second. ‘It seems as if Wright was a loose cannon all his life—Robinson mentioned that it wasn’t unusual for him to go just that little bit too far. An intense bloke. All or nothing, that sort of thing.’

(John reckoned he was far too familiar with _that sort of thing_.)

Sherlock stepped back to gaze at the hodgepodge of photos, maps, clippings, forms and God knows what else. ‘And that’s it?’

John watched Sherlock settle onto the back of his armchair as he ran through his conversation with Lestrade. ‘That’s it.’

‘Good. I need to think.’

*

He’d got used to working around Sherlock when he was dedicated to intense thought. It wasn’t difficult: the detective could have probably ignored an entire brass band if they decided to rehearse in the flat, and John had never been a particularly troublesome man. Sherlock perched on the back of his chair, chin resting on his steepled hands and everything but his darting eyes and involuntary breathing was entirely still. John just took his seat at their desk—table, filing cabinet, catch-all, black hole, whatever it was—and worked on. There was always a chance that the armchair was capsize one day, after all, and Sherlock would either find himself halfway through the window or under a pile of books. It was a genuine inevitability, when the man treated furniture the way he did.

It wasn’t like Sherlock was unaware of what was happening around him. Not completely, anyway; he didn’t notice if he didn’t have to, if it wasn’t unavoidable, if he wasn’t bothered. But if he was bothered, if he _did_ have to, he noticed. It was odd, really; he didn’t react immediately either. They’d been sat there for three-quarters of an hour before John had placed a fresh pack of nicotine patches on the table at Sherlock’s knee on his way back from the bookcase. It took another twenty minutes and a trip to the bathroom, but when John returned, Sherlock had rolled up one sleeves and attached two. He still left the wrappers strewn around on the floor—his attention span never reached the realm of tidying up.

Sherlock may have been silent, but he wasn’t always still, either. Half the time John felt the need to actually check if Sherlock was still breathing, he’d been sat in his chair so long, and in the other half he couldn’t possibly stop himself. John had only popped to the shop at the end of the road to pick up the evening’s papers and when he looked up from tucking his keys into the pocket of his coat as it hung on the back of the door, Sherlock was stood square in front of his makeshift incident board, hands on his hips and the line of his mouth becoming more and more indignant. John smiled and walked towards him, the profile and the back and the silhouette, because Sherlock was all of those parts and none of them all at once. Sometimes, when Sherlock was getting especially absorbed in a case, John took refuge in the slope of Sherlock’s shoulders.

He pressed his forehead onto the top of Sherlock’s backbone, the front of John’s skull against the last of Sherlock’s cervical vertebrae. Sherlock didn’t stiffen, or jump—and why would he, when he had no concept of personal space or why sneaking up on people might be startling. They were just still, separate but not, and John knew hanging around was counterproductive. For him, of course. Sherlock couldn’t care less, bodies were just transport; his mind was unrestricted even with John’s weight against him.

So John pulled back after only a handful of moments, and brushed a soft hand across the nape of Sherlock’s neck, that warm bit of skin just under his collar, as he walked back to his chair. He could have sworn he could feel Sherlock’s eyes watching him, following the back of his own head, but when he dropped the newspaper next to his closed laptop and sat down, Sherlock was still staring at all the information he’d stuck onto their long-suffering wall.

*

John had just placed another mug of tea near Sherlock’s knee while he was nursing his sixth when Sherlock broke the silence.

‘What—is—this—about?’ The words were only barely escaping through gritted teeth, and tendons stood proud against the thin skin on Sherlock’s neck as he tensed.

John leaned on the side of his armchair, and steadied the hot ceramic in his hand on the crook of his folded elbow. He twisted his neck to see the pictures, the smiling eyes staring back out at them, and ventured a guess. He was only filling in for a skull, after all. He couldn’t go that wrong—that, and Sherlock would have no trouble telling him to piss off, and John wouldn’t mind even if he did.

‘Sex?’ he suggested, with a waft of his mug in no particular direction.

Sherlock turned to look at him with an incredulous expression, as if he was searching for signs of sarcasm in John’s face and found none. ‘Crimes that involve sex are rarely _about_ sex.’

Right. He hadn’t listened to the question, had he? Only with Sherlock would that distinction arise.

‘Well, sex and Colin Morrisson? I know he’s not, but—’

‘No, neither is the kidnapper,’ said Sherlock with a dismissive wave of his hand.

John frowned. ‘You can tell?’

‘I knew with you, didn’t I?’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘Yes, I did.’

There was a tinge of a smile emerging on Sherlock’s lips, but he was winning the battle against it. John was less inclined to laughter—were they really having that discussion? Were they really throwing those arguments at each other? What were they, seven?—but there was a large enough vein of truth in Sherlock’s knowing flippancy that made it impossible for John to deny him the satisfaction of being right. He hadn’t thought anything that night at Angelo’s (or at least, he’d not made it quite as far as Sherlock assumed he had) and Sherlock had beaten him to it. _John, um… I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work, and while I’m flattered by your interest, I’m really not looking for any…_

The smile was gaining ground with every second that John didn’t respond, and the doctor added fuel to the fire by revealing a grin of his own.

‘Yeah, but you’d _met_ me. You know, in person?’

Sherlock kept staring at his makeshift case board, but his features surrendered and that half-smile of his warmed his features. John chuckled into his mug, and it was only when Sherlock had managed to regain a blank expression that he spoke again.

‘Doesn’t matter. It’s not about that.’

‘For the sake of clarity, then… what is it about?’

They were talking in circles, but there wasn’t much else for them to do. What could the whole thing be about? The only real connection between Nathalie Briggs and Ben Wright was Colin Morrisson. What had she done? What had he done, and what had _he_ done? There didn’t seem to be any reason behind any of it. They were all mates, they’d spent time together, and presumably shared laughs and smiles and meals and the rest of what companionship offered. So what made Nathalie a target? What made Ben single her out? What made the entire development of events possible?

John didn’t have the answers, and as Sherlock sat there with a furrowed brow, neither did he.

*

The dregs of John’s tea had gone cold in his hands by the time Sherlock spoke again.

‘What if it’s not about her?’

John felt as if this was as good a time as any to be cynical. ‘Well, it’s about her now, seeing as she’s the one he’s snatched.’

‘But it’s not _about_ her, John!’

Something in Sherlock’s voice had changed, shifted from an initial recognition to an exhilarated realisation, and it made John’s breath catch in his throat.

‘What?’

‘It’s him, it’s _him_ …’ Sherlock was jabbing the picture of Colin that he’d slotted inbetween the mirror and its glass frame. It was one of him and Nathalie at Christmas that his mother had sent down after term had begun; no self-respecting student of the twenty-first century would still be dealing with photo prints. That, and she’d written on the back: _Colin and Nathalie, Christmas Eve 2012_. Theirs were smiles on the verge of laughter, ones that suggested the mirth would bubble through any attempts to smother it.

John had spent a few too many moments looking at that picture wondering whether or not he and Sherlock would have any pictures that weren’t plastered on the front of the dailies. Now he just stared at Sherlock’s insistent finger, mouth ever so slightly agape.

‘But—you just said it had nothing to do with Morrisson!’

Sherlock shot him a condescending look at he spun around, eyes darting from floor to ceiling to door and back again. ‘No, I said it had nothing to do with sex,’ he said dryly. When his eyes fell on John again, punctuated his exclamations with an open palm. ‘You said it—you said it _yourself_!’

John shook his head. ‘I’m not following.’

‘Do you ever?’

‘ _Sherlock_!’

The man jumped from where he sat, walking in circles through the small amount of open space in their sitting room. ‘The whole world thinks they knew the truth—there’s no such thing. In people’s minds, _there is no truth_ , only various shades of lies they’ve been telling themselves—’

‘What are you on about now?’

Sherlock stopped in his tracks, and met John’s confounded gaze. ‘I believe the popular term is _he’s just not that into you_.’

John’s mouth fell open, and it took him a moment to process exactly what Sherlock had said. ‘How the hell did that get in your head, let alone evade deletion?’

Sherlock ignored him. ‘Morrisson moved on, Wright could only fool himself for so long…’

‘Wait—so you’re saying—’ John said disjointedly.

‘That Wright had been left behind, yes.’

John pinched the bridge of his nose, then waved his hand in Sherlock’s direction as the detective retrieved his suit jacket. ‘Except he hadn’t. Morrisson talked about him like they were still in each others pockets. Maybe not as close as they once were, but not… _distant_.’

‘Irrelevant. Wright believed it.’ Sherlock was shrugging on the blazer then, not bothering to unfold the sleeve he’d rolled up. ‘He threw reasonable thought out the window after that, like the rest of you lot tend to do.’

‘Us lot?’

‘Yes, _you lot_ —idiots,’ said Sherlock as he retrieved his coat from the hook on the back of the door.

‘Fuck off, Sherlock. _You’re_ an idiot.’

‘Believe whatever makes you happy, John.’

The sarcasm was laid on thicker than the layer of butter on Mycroft’s morning toast.

‘I do believe that’s the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me,’ said John as he pulled on his own coat. He had no idea what they were doing or where they were going and he had only to vaguest idea of why, but when Sherlock got to the point where he was rushing out, it was best to follow him.

Sherlock only gave him a flash of a smile before they found themselves halfway down the stairs.

*

_On inquiries._

It was the oldest excuse in the book, yet there it was, scrawled on a sticky note and stuck to the front of Lestrade’s computer. Sherlock almost had a fit. John almost had one when Lestrade walked in ten minutes later reeking of cigarettes.

They didn’t need to say anything about it; Lestrade could punish himself much more than either of them could. Sherlock’s repudiating stare and the incline of John’s head were worth more than words. Lestrade removed the packet from his coat pocket and dropped it from a height onto his desk; it fell with a muffled thump on a pile of paperwork, and none of them acknowledged it. Sherlock should have, if he’d wanted to seem more like himself, but he didn’t and that seemed more out of place than Lestrade’s return to the cigs. Maybe that was what made the detective inspector frown as he leant against the filing cabinet… then again, John knew that could realistically be any number of things.

‘To what do I owe this pleasure, then?’

The sarcasm was lost on Sherlock, who launched into an explanation as haphazard and vague as the one he’d given John less than twenty minutes before. John still couldn’t really wrap his head around exactly how this development was going to help them, but as he watched Lestrade’s frown morph from one of discontentment to one of contemplation, he thought they just might have something.

Sherlock glanced between them when he finished speaking, wide-eyed and grinning with the exhilaration. John couldn’t muster that excitement from where he sat, facing Sherlock’s seat, and Lestrade pushed himself to his feet with a heavy sigh.

‘Lovely reasoning there, Sherlock,’ he said as he dropped into his chair and fingered the flap on his nondescript packet of cigarettes, ‘but it doesn’t actually get us anywhere.’

‘I disagree.’

‘Of course you do,’ muttered Lestrade as he ran a hand over his overworked brow.

John didn’t know who to glare at, although it was soon apparent that he needn’t bother. Sherlock was going to launch into an explanation no matter what he did.

‘This is about Morrisson. Forget Briggs, she’s not what matters—’

‘ _Sherlock_!’

‘Don’t be so sensitive, Lestrade. She’s not what matters, not to him. In fact, I’d doubt he has any idea what he’s doing. Judging by his record, he’s not the planning sort.’

‘Sherlock,’ John said, echoing Lestrade’s warning with a degree of confusion. ‘Of course he’s planned this! Otherwise how could he have got Nathalie in the first place?’

‘If you’d _listen_ , John, then I’d be able to finish a thought. He’s not planned it completely. He’d planned enough to get to this point, to get her, but he doesn’t have any idea what to do now. He’s emotional, not cold. Emotions, they betray the body, John! So, if he’s bothered about Morrisson, what do his emotions make him do? Where do they tell him to take her?’

Nothing immediately sprung into John’s mind. Exactly what emotions were they dealing with? Jealousy? Betrayal? Filial love? Codependence? There was no real way of telling. Only intuition, likelihood, and precedent. The fact Wright had taken _Nathalie_ suggested jealousy, but why not take Morrisson if that was who he wanted? Betrayal? More likely, yet there wasn’t any clear path to revenge unless he planned to get rid of her, and he didn’t fit that profile. And where were they? It was easy enough to be anonymous, hidden, lost in an attempt not to be found in London, if you knew it well enough. But Wright didn’t, he’d only been down a few times and only where Morrisson had been. Familiarity wasn’t on his side. It didn’t seem like anything was, yet there they were, still trying to find him.

John looked up from the scratch on the edge of Lestrade’s desk to find that the other two men didn’t seem to have any more idea than he did. Well, Lestrade definitely didn’t, as he supported his head with both his hands; Sherlock’s expression gave nothing away.

Lestrade ran a hand over his furrowed brow before throwing it in front of him, gesturing towards nothing in particular. ‘Let’s just think about this logically for a moment—’

Sherlock wheeled around from where he’d paused and waved his hand in Lestrade’s general direction. ‘No, no, we can’t be rational.’

‘What?’ Lestrade looked to John, confounded.

‘He means Wright’s irrational,’ John explained as he reached behind him to catch Sherlock’s sleeve. ‘He’s not thinking straight. Paranoid.’

Lestrade nodded, his mouth a tight line, as Sherlock pulled away from John’s gentle touch in order to pace like an animal too large for its cage.

‘Paranoia is a poisonous wish that makes everything come true,’ muttered Sherlock into the gentle silence of Lestrade’s office. The hubbub of the team carried on outside, with phones and typing and conversations between desks at opposite ends of the room, but inbetween the dividing walls and windows there was nothing but breathing. Sherlock halted, his step muffled against the carpet, and looked between John and Lestrade. ‘Have you got any other remarkably unuseful ideas?’

He’d barely finished enunciating his words when Sherlock’s face lit up, the moody set of his features giving way to inspiration. The corners of his mouth tipped upwards as the idea took concrete shape in his head, his outstretched hands gradually coming to bracket the air around his head. ‘Oh! _Oh_!’

Lestrade jumped to his feet, leaning across the desk to force his face into Sherlock’s field of vision. ‘What?’

Sherlock positively beamed. ‘What’s the closest thing to their original friendship that he could latch onto?’

‘Something from Glasgow?’ suggested John as he took a leaf out of Lestrade’s book and pushed himself to his feet. ‘School?’

‘No, too far back.’ Sherlock shook his head. ‘We need to think forwards—something, something in London…’

John and Lestrade stood in silence, the backs of their knees pressed against the edge of their chairs as Sherlock resumed his long-legged pacing. His face was closed, this time, still mobile but cornered off. John recognized it as him going through the information he’d stored in his head, information the rest of them kept in manila folders and computer files. His lips moved in an imperceptible commentary that only became loud enough for comprehension when he turned back to them, eyes open and gleaming.

‘Try Hampstead,’ he barked, swirling around on the spot as his body tried to keep up with his racing mind. He was already planning their next move. ‘Try the heath. I’ve got my people looking.’

Lestrade had reached for his phone and was halfway through dialing the appropriate extension when he fixed Sherlock with a skeptical gaze. ‘ _You_ have people?’

‘In a sense of the world. They don’t wear a checkered uniform—’ Sherlock said, wrinkling his nose. ‘—bit less obvious.’

‘Sherlock,’ John warned as he took the steps necessary to bring him side-to-side with the detective.

‘Come on, John,’ he said, seizing the nearest available limb—John’s upper arm—with firm fingers. ‘I need to think.’

*

‘Stop! Stop here!’

Sherlock flung the door of the taxi open as soon as the red light died away, before it had even come to a complete stop, and John lurched forward as the cabbie stepped on the brake. Disregarding the onslaught of oncoming traffic, Sherlock dashed across the tarmac to the other side of the road, leaving John gazing out the car’s window at the flapping coattails barely skimming headlamps and his ears protesting at the angry honking.

‘Sorry about that,’ John said as he shifted over the back seats and turned to place his feet on the pavement through the door Sherlock had left open. He wasn’t even really sure why he was apologizing—cabbies must have experienced much worse passengers than Sherlock. At least he was quiet and collected most of the time. Taxis were where he did a lot of his thinking; his head must have been a cacophonous tip, but he was as about as rowdy as a piece of cheese.

‘You getting out here, then?’ asked the driver as John made his way to his feet and leant against the black metal.

‘Nah, he replied, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets and squinting against the slight evening wind as he tried to keep Sherlock within his field of vision. ‘He’ll only be a minute.’

The cabbie gave an accepting nod and craned his neck to follow John’s gaze. ‘What’s he doing?’

‘Best not ask.’

As far as John could see, Sherlock had taken the opportunity (or made one; he had just halted their journey back to the flat with no forthcoming explanation) to have a little chat with his homeless network. More than once John had wondered if they’d helped him hide; he’d never gone very far with that train of thought, though. Too close, still. It probably always would be, to some extent.

John didn’t recognize the girl Sherlock was talking to, and he could only guess that the paper he was holding up was a picture of their suspect. Still, he already had people out with their eyes peeled for him, so Sherlock must have been updating his instructions. More details, more urgency, more something or other. John didn’t know; this was Sherlock’s bit. He just paid the fare.

‘You’re telling me,’ came the reply, the cabbie sounding as if he’d had plenty of nutters to deal with and he’d just found someone who understood the difficulties as well as he did.

John shrugged and pushed himself off the car as he saw Sherlock turn on his heel and begin to waltz back to the taxi at a much reduced speed than the one he’d left it with. ‘I really should be warning everyone.’

The cabbie laughed, a deep-throated chuckle that betrayed a history of a two-packets-a-day habit, and John settled back into his seat to wait for Sherlock to return. They could put Victoria Embankment behind them, then, and get a move on with the only avenue still available to them: brainpower, and lots of it.


	10. Chapter 10

‘Sherlock!’

Hampstead. Hampstead residences. NW3, Kidderpore Avenue. What was close? It was a residential area—standard fare. Shops. People. Busy—too busy for hiding for very long. Except on streets that were almost exclusively residential. Can’t be the residences, nowhere to disappear. Somewhere nearby. Tube? Hampstead, to the southeast, twelve minutes, Northern line. West Hampstead was the next closest, but more awkward—Overground. Train? West Hampstead, again, or Cricklewood. Bus routes 46, 210, 268, 603. One night bus, N5. Perhaps a car? No license, but when did anyone _need_ one? No, too problematic. Too high a chance of someone noticing. Where would he have kept it? Nowhere to hide it. On foot, then. Cabs more likely than any other public transport. Risk recognition by one for the chance that the police would never find the right cabbie to ask. They wouldn’t. 

‘Sherlock?’

Hampstead. Anglo-saxon. _Ham_ , _stede_ , homestead. Wright had gone back home, in his own way. In his head. Freud—Freud Museum? St Luke’s Church, Kidderpore Avenue. The heath, not just around the corner but close enough. Could have thought it useful. Kentwood House? Cruising? No, not interested, not related. Too much going on on the Heath. Somewhere much quieter, secluded, somewhere where no one would ask questions. One too many chances for someone to happen upon something on the Heath. Pubs—too many to reasonably narrow the list down without more to go on. Not quiet, but loud enough so he could hide in commotion. Not reliable. Something else. Something _else_ …

‘ _Sherlock_!’

‘What _is_ it, Mrs Hudson?’

Sherlock snapped around, tearing himself away from the inside of his own skull in order to give Mrs Hudson the attention she was so obtrusively demanding. He frowned at her, and she smiled back. She was annoyed with him, yes, he could tell from the way she stood against the doorway, but it wouldn’t stay that way. She was half on her way to bed, too, judging by the fluffy dressing gown and mug of tea in her hand. There were telltale crumbs on her sleeve, as well, so there was a new packet of biscuits in the mix somewhere. Had she been to bed yet or just not bothered? Not been to bed. A late night, filled with pottering about and a cheeky biscuit or two. What day was it? Thursday, just crossed into Friday? Or Friday into Saturday? Did it matter?

Once she’d won his attention from the makeshift caseboard on the opposite wall, she walked into the sitting room—with less effort than usual. The milder weather was doing her hip some good, then. For some reason, Sherlock found that he was glad. 

‘You’ve got a visitor at the front door. Poor thing was ringing the bell for ages before I managed to get to the door. I thought you were doing some odd experimentation that involved the microwave timer again.’

Sherlock ignored her, and settled his chin on his steepled hands as he propped his elbows on his knees. She stepped through the pile of books and group of file storage boxes peeking out from under the coffee table, and recoiled as a piece of cold toast fell out of the magazine she dared to lift from the pile on the sofa’s armrest. Mrs Hudson glared at Sherlock, but he just shrugged and remained perched on the back of the leather furniture, looking at the pictures and the documents and the bits and pieces they had managed to find out. Where, _where—_?

‘He says he’s got information,’ Mrs Hudson continued as she picked up the discarded bread between her thumb and forefinger and dropped it in the nearest bin. ‘Reporting a sighting, apparently.’

His line of vision shifted from the opposite wall and towards the back of Mrs Hudson’s head. He really should have been bothered by the fact she was sorting out their post, but he wasn’t. What was it John had said? Priorities. Right, well, priorities it would be. Cases first, post second. Actually, post was boring. Put that at the bottom of the list.

Sherlock braced himself against the spine of the sofa and pushed himself upwards, somehow finding himself on his feet with a thud that made his landlady jump. She turned around to look at him with a hand over her chest, and she shook her head with a mildly amused smile.

‘Why they’re coming to you and not the relevant authorities, I don’t know…’

Eyebrows raised, mouth twitching into a short smile. Sherlock knew she didn’t see the change in his expression; if she had, she’d be telling him off. She caught the eyebrows though, the crafted air of disdain. Doesn’t matter; she didn’t mind. Never has. In any case, she was more preoccupied with turning around with her hands on her hips now that she’d deposited her tea on the last free corner of the table. 

‘Really, Sherlock, why don’t you tidy up once in a while? I don’t know how you manage to think straight in this tip.’

Sherlock ignored her, and pointed down the stairs leading to the front door. His voice sounded oddly disembodied. ‘I’ll just pop down, shall I?’

‘Hmm. Best do,’ Mrs Hudson said absent-mindedly as she slid her fingers through the handle of her mug. Just as Sherlock was walking towards the doorway, she added: ‘Oh, keep your voice down, dear. John’s just about nodded off.’

Oh, she was right. He must have. He’d gone up thirty-seven minutes before; if he wasn’t at least half asleep by now, he’d have been back down. He was like that. The one thing he gave up on. Sleep. Unless that wasn’t really giving up, that was just saving time, and Sherlock was always in favour of efficiency. Why be lying awake in bed thinking about every embarrassing experience in one’s life (apparently, that’s what popped into the heads of idiots when they were failing to drop off, of _all_ things) when you could be thinking about any one of a hundred things that were more interesting? Why waste the brainpower?

Brainpower could have been put to a more specific use, though. The case. Nathalie Briggs, Benjamin Wright, Colin Morrisson, London, Waterloo, Lambeth, Piccadilly, Royal Academy— _Royal Academy_. That’s what John had been doing. The files, all the Royal Academy files with Briggs’ name on them. Anything she’d touched, anything she’d edited, anything she’d worked on. Probably nothing, it was a bit of a long shot but something, _something,_ there might have been something. Sherlock glanced down at the cases at his feet; a quick calculation, and he reckoned John had got through half of them. Maybe two-thirds. Not three-quarters, not close enough. The newest ones, the ones more likely to have come into contact with Wright’s visit. Why would they be connected?

Why not?

John had chucked the last few he’d been balancing on his lap onto the table. They perched on top of a pile of police files, quiet and unassuming in their labeling. Sherlock hadn’t noticed. Why would he? John would have said if anything was worth looking at. John knew what was worth looking at. _Most_ of the time. 

‘Right,’ he’d said as he stretched his arms out behind him. ‘You might be able to keep doing this for days but I go useless without at least an hour’s kip. I’ll be upstairs if you need me.’

Sherlock hadn’t responded— _Why would I need you?_ didn’t even come to mind as he thought, thought of everything he could fit in his head at one time—but he’d received the kiss to the side of his head with a slight return pressure. John had understood. He always understood that bit of them—even understood it when Sherlock didn’t.

Sherlock wouldn't have minded kissing him back, either. Odd, that. Out of place.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head briskly. No matter. Irrelevant. Should be filed for investigation at a later date. Not too much later, though. It could affect the data if he left it too long.

‘Weren’t you going down, dear?’ came Mrs Hudson’s voice from somewhere to his left.

He grunted. Yes. Right. Downstairs. Door. _Information._ Sherlock spun on his heel and bounded down the stairs, taking the last three all together and landing in front of the doormat with yet another thud. His ankle might have protested, a bit, but not enough to distract his hand from reaching out to the door handle and unhooking the door chain with the other. It wouldn’t matter later, so why should it matter then? 

Mrs Hudson called down the stairs, from somewhere that Sherlock placed as most likely being the kitchen. ‘Oh, Sherlock, do tell him to come in for a cup of tea if he fancies. It’ll be pouring out there soon!’ 

The door creaked under Sherlock’s hand, but he pulled it open nonetheless to reveal a suggestive drizzle and a bedraggled young man sat on the doorstep. He looked about as pleased about the moisture in the air as a cat that had just slipped into a pond, and he scowled as he nursed the very end of a home-rolled cigarette. Even so, when Sherlock cleared his throat the boy jumped to his feet, scrambling to keep himself steady and almost poised to run. He’d had to do that a lot, apparently. Might be jumpy. Probably skittish. Bit like a cat, really.

Sherlock crossed his arms as he fixed a keen eye on the youth. Early-to-mid twenties most likely, could be late teens at an unlikely push. Been on the streets for a while, _quite_ a while; he knew his way around then, knew some places like the back of his hand and others like the front. Familiar with a lot, expert in more than most. Knew how to keep his nose down, how to dodge, how to _hide_. Hiding what? No matter, irrelevant.

‘What have you got, then?’ Sherlock prompted as the man took another long drag on what was left of his cigarette. The nicotine patches on his forearm under the layers of Sherlock’s shirt and blazer had never felt so heavy as they did when the man exhaled.

‘The guy,’ was the only reply he got, and it just had to be accompanied by another cloud of smoke, didn’t it?

Sherlock rolled his eyes, and fought the urge to curl his lip. ‘Care to elaborate?’

‘I’ve seen the guy.’

‘Benjamin Wright?’

‘How the hell am I supposed to know what ‘is bloody name is?’ Another puff of smoke, another deep breath he really shouldn’t be taking. The excuse of fresh air wouldn’t even work with the London smog; it was a shame, really, that you couldn’t smoke that. ‘Nah, I’ve just seen ‘im. Recognized ‘im, haven’t I? From the picture you flashed to Fiona.’

Sherlock had no idea who Fiona was, either, but he never made a point of learning any of their names. They were all irrelevant in the end, and as long as he got his information there was really no reason to get to know any of them _personally._

‘Where?’

The man pushed his dark, wet hair out of his eyes as the rain started falling that bit heavier. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head as well, glancing up and down the road as he did so. The cigarette was almost burning his fingers, so little of it was left, but Sherlock would have still taken it from him if he had half the chance. ‘There’s a… house, up north. Posh, innit, but empty. Has been for months.’ Another drag. ‘Half full with floorboards and paint cans and shit, and everything’s covered in dust and plastic sheeting but it’s a roof over our ‘eads.’ 

Sherlock frowned. ‘How long has it been empty?’

‘Properly _empty_? Maybe four months, give or take a few weeks. No one’s lived there for a year or so, and by the looks of it whoever owns it gutted the place. Used to be swarming with builders, but it’s calmed down recently. No one notices if we pop in now and then.’

He needn’t ask who _we_ was. He financed them, after all. ‘You’ve seen him using it, then?’

The visitor nodded. ‘I’m sure it was ‘im, unless he’s got some odd twin brother who’s the spittin’ image. Nah, definitely. Didn’t see the girl though, sorry ‘bout that but I don’t hang ‘round too long. I like to stay on the move when it suits me.’

‘When?’

‘Late yesterday morning. I was going to pop in meself for a quick kip, but I spotted ‘im on my way in and I reckoned it’d be best to leave it be. Plenty of other places if you know where to look, after all.’ 

Sherlock ignored him; too much information, only half of it relevant. _Oh_ , but what was _relevant_ — ‘I’m going to need an address.’

The man took the pen and paper that Sherlock offered him, and scribbled a number and street name in capitals. Raindrops plopped from the adjacent awning onto the thin paper, and by the time Sherlock got it back, it looked as if it’d been through a standard wash cycle. Thankfully the letters were still legible, and he committed the address to memory from a single glance as he closed the notebook and slotted it into his jacket pocket. There. Now _there_ was something—something he could _use_.

He fished around in another pocket and retrieved a few folded notes, holding them out to the young man as compensation. He took it, the bills rustling as he put them in his jean pocket, and he kept his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt as the rain continued to drop onto the fleece surrounding his head.

Sherlock remembered Mrs Hudson’s offer. ‘My landlady,’ he began, and the dark eyes of the man flitted back to him as he took another hard drag on his cigarette. Sherlock swallowed around nothing, almost angry at his body’s failings when his mind was positively surging foward without him, and continued. ‘The woman who opened the door when you rang? She’s offered you a cup of tea, if you need it.’ He did curl his lip as he said it—why did everything go back to being so damn _domestic_ all the time—but the young man smiled, the first time he’d done it properly since they’d laid eyes on each other. Oh, wouldn’t John have been _proud_ of him?

‘Cheers, mate,’ he said as he dropped the glowing cigarette and crushed it with his toe. Sherlock didn’t know whether to mourn or to feel relieved—or, if he thought about it, make some snide comment about not being his ‘mate.’ Instead, he turned and called up to Mrs Hudson as he closed the door behind them both and dashed up the stairs. 

They almost collided on the landing, but Sherlock managed to skirt around her and reach to the back of the door to unhook his coat. The air wasn’t particularly chilled anymore, not like it had been when he’d waited for John in Victoria Tower Gardens, but the wetness was enough to transmogrify a light wind to a bone chill. A coat never went amiss in London.

‘What’s happened?’ Mrs Hudson asked as he reached over her to retrieve his scarf. Her face was more resigned than worried, although it still puzzled him when there was worry there.

Why? Anxiety over what? No matter. More important things to do—to see—to find out. 

‘We have reached, Mrs Hudson,’ Sherlock said, the creeping smile still playing across his features in the warm light of the sitting room, ‘what I believe is referred to as the climax.’ 

She looked unconvinced. Slight disapproval. Maybe ten percent, fifteen. ‘At this time of night?’

Sherlock cocked a brow at her as he adjusted the tightness of his scarf. ‘Is there any better time?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, and instead spun around and laid a hand on the edge of the railing that separated up from down.  ‘John!’ he called, shouting with an exhilaration that only ever accompanied a breakthrough. ‘ _John!_ ’

Still, he didn’t wait. Much to Mrs Hudson’s chagrin, Sherlock spun around and surged towards the door, more concerned with what came next than what lay behind.

He made it halfway down the stairs before he turned back, only saved from slipping from one step to another by his sudden grip on the railing, and said, ‘Oh, and you’ve got a visitor,’ before clattering down what was left of the staircase and charging through the front door. 

*

John woke with a snort, and found himself face down on his pillow. He hadn’t even managed to get undressed properly; he’d pulled off his jeans and removed his jumper, but he’d collapsed on top of the covers in just his boxers and t-shirt. Well, he’d also managed to shove his face so far into his pillow he’d had difficulty breathing, and that arm pinned under his chest was tingling in a way that suggested it’d not feel right for hours. John rolled onto his back with a groan and flung an arm over his eyes to protect them from the light that shone up from the hallway. Sherlock was still up, then (and why wouldn’t he be?), probably staring straight into the offending lightbulb.

‘Sherlock?’ John called, his voice subdued. The movement of his jaw carried the weight of his arm up and down as he spoke. His other hand lay dangling off the edge of the bed, the leather of his watch digging into his wrist.

There was no reply, and John grumbled in frustration. Sherlock’s responses to someone calling his name were about as reliable as an Alfa Romeo. John stirred, shifting his heavy muscles in a feeble attempt to rouse himself properly. His shins ached, as they always did when he overtired himself. Having a nap had probably been a bad idea; he’d feel like shit for ages before perking up. His bones felt too heavy—too weary—as he rolled to the opposite side of the bed and scrambled off, sending one of Sherlock’s discarded dressing gowns tumbling to the floor. John reckoned that if he was going to be conscious, he was going to have to have a bloody good cup of tea.

John’s belief that he required tea to function properly was only reinforced by his journey downstairs, in which he’d managed to stub his toe before he’d even left the bedroom and almost tripped as he misjudged the final step on the stairs. He blinked against the bright yellow light as he entered its kingdom, blinding following the same steps he followed every morning towards where the kettle should be. John reached for its handle and grasped without thinking; he was more concerned with thinking that it would have been better if he’d just taken a nap sitting up at the table rather than in his bed. He wouldn’t have fallen into such a deep sleep that way.

It was when he turned around, opening the top of kettle so he could fill it, that John realised that Sherlock wasn’t sat at the kitchen table. A quick glance told him he wasn’t in the sitting room, either. Something twinged low in John's stomach at the familiar emptiness than lay before him, but he shook it off and held the kettle under the tap as he turned it on. He’d just have to go and find the sneaky bugger when the kettle was boiling. It was better than standing around, waiting, after all. 

The water sloshed around in the clear body of the appliance as John shoved it back onto the cluttered countertop, and he hit its battered ‘on’ button before leaving the kitchen to investigate the rest of the flat. Before long, the silence was replaced with an angry crescendo, but John found no signs of life apart from himself in either the room that used to be Sherlock’s bedroom (it was more of a laboratory storage room, now) or in their bathroom.  

John stood in the kitchen until there was a click and the rolling boil died away. He’d suddenly gone off the idea of a cuppa—or, more precisely, the idea of relaxing and having a good sit down white he drunk it. Sherlock… well, it never used to be unusual for Sherlock just to tear off at any given moment. For complex cases like this one he would have generally drug John with him, even if the doctor was half asleep, but going off alone should have felt like an everyday occurrence. Then, though… then, it had been different. The last time John had been left, he though he’d been left for good. He’d managed to avoid this situation, keeping Sherlock quiet and flat-bound while his rib healed, then spent more time doing legwork with Sherlock than he had receiving a paycheck. John had left plenty a time, but only because Sherlock didn’t care. He knew John would come back.

John… well, John didn’t. He’d worried, up until then; he’d never let himself make it to panic.

Except it wasn’t _panic_ , what was coursing around his veins and quivering in every muscle. Not really… but it was definitely its embryonic form. John’s itching fingers pulled at the elastic at his thighs as he tried to think what the hell he should—could—do. He’d already taken in the breath needed to call down to Mrs Hudson, just in case Sherlock had wheedled his way in there to get her to fill in for that bloody skull, but then he realised the time. The electronically illuminated numbers that sat above the handle of the oven door caught John’s eye as he scanned the flat for Sherlock, one last (desperate) time. 

Twenty past two— _shit_. He’d been asleep much longer than he’d thought. How long had Sherlock been gone?

John went from sleepy and sluggish to clumsy and hurried far faster than he’d have thought was humanly possible. He had a reason to panic, now, if the situation warranted it. Sherlock wasn’t about to only be at the closest twenty-four hour corner shop getting an emergency pack of Hobnobs. He had to have streaked off for something to do with the case, or a suspect. You could get killed just doing Lestrade’s job, even with all the politeness in the world, and Sherlock galumphed around every crime scene and feeble criminal mind he encountered. He pissed people off for the sake of brevity. If John had to put money on someone getting hurt on the job, it’d be Sherlock—the smarmy, idiotic, dickish _genius_.

He could feel his heart hammering against the bone and cartilage of his chest as he took the stairs leading to the bedroom two at a time. The organ felt too large and too heavy and too absent all at once; John had to stop and take a series of short breaths just to collect himself enough to pick out the clothes he’d discarded hours before. It shouldn’t have taken him as long as it did, for what would usually have been knots of trouser legs and shirtsleeves were folded neatly in a borrowed laundry basket. It’d been sitting there, untouched, for a few days, but John could still catch the scent of their detergent as he leant over to retrieve his jumper. He recoiled from it, although the aroma itself was familiar, as he wheeled around and caught sight of the rough cotton of his jeans. Too familiar—everything felt too familiar, too close, too small—

John jumped as the shrill ringing of his mobile cut cleanly through his clouded mind. He was halfway through pulling on his trousers, and it required a bit of contortion, but he managed to fish out the phone from the back pocket; Mycroft’s name and number flashed at him form the screen. At any other time he’d have moaned and groaned or tried to see how long he could put Mycroft off, but John didn’t have time for that. Not this time. Instead, he accepted the call and propped the device to his ear with a raised shoulder.

The rustling of him continuing to dress was enough of a prompt for Mycroft. ‘John?’

 ‘Mycroft.’ John’s voice was much steadier than he felt, bearing in mind that the man he was talking to was generally the barer of bad news.

Whatever he may have noticed, Mycroft carried on nontheless. ‘Ah, good. I have some news to report.'

‘Hmm?’ John added as he zipped and buttoned before patting his pockets. What was he likely to need…?

‘My brother,’ continued Mycroft, pausing for emphasis, ‘has managed to give our surveillance the slip.’

John’s mind went blank, reset without warning. ‘Shit.’

‘Yes, that was my thoughts exactly.’

How could he stay so coolly calm? Well, they both should have been used to it by then, but—getting away from Mycroft’s surveillance was basically disappearing off the face of Britain. That required skill, and effort… two things Sherlock had in abundance. If anyone could do it, it would be Sherlock. John moved like a struck match, invigorated by the news after his initial shock.

‘Where?’ he asked as he jogged downstairs. At least this gave him a bit of an idea of what to do. It was something, and he’d just been prepared to run out into the night with nothing. 

There was rustling on Mycroft’s end, and then: ‘Euston Station, half an hour ago.’

‘Shit. And that long? _Half an hour_ , to Euston?’

John could almost feel Mycroft’s frown through the line. ‘You didn’t see him leave?’ 

‘No, I nodded off,’ John muttered as he shoved his eyes into a front pocket. ‘Shit, _shit_ …’

‘John, are you—’ 

‘Yes, fine,’ John snapped. ‘Fine.’

‘You’re getting repetitive.’

‘Fine,’ John said, cringing as he pinched the bridge of his nose to the point of pain. ‘Sorry.’

Mycroft made a noise low in his throat, through whether it was disbelief or disapproval, John couldn’t tell. ‘Sherlock was heading north,’ he continued as John stood in the doorway between the sitting room and kitchen, trying his best to put his shoes on properly with only one free hand. ‘He spent a while speaking to a group of rough sleepers.’

‘Homeless Network.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Mycroft cleared his throat. ‘That.’

John wasn’t paying attention to Mycroft’s subtitles any more—there was a time and a place for that sort of thing, and the current moment was neither. ‘North, you said?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right.’ John strode towards the landing. ‘I’ll go. Keep looking.’

He didn’t wait for an answer; the phone was back in his pocket before he’d had a chance to really think about the fact he’d given Mycroft an order. Not really, anyway, but it didn’t matter. The situation had warranted it. Now, John was taking the stairs two at a time, not bothering to stay quiet as he was quite sure Mrs Hudson was more than used to clattering and charging about in the wee hours. The outside air cooled his face, and the door that slammed behind him was just another addition to the noise of human history that flooded in his ears. It must have started raining while he was asleep, splattering the ground with puddles and damp before petering out into a thin drizzle that stung John’s face as he turned into its slant. The lights of the main street were fuzzy though the layer of liquid, splayed out into indistinct stars, and cars kept their wipers on as they made their last dashes home. It may have been two in the morning, but London wouldn’t have been London without traffic and honking and sirens in the distance.

John turned towards where the bulk of the closest noise was coming from, and decided in an instant to make his way to the busier road at the end of Baker Street—he’d get a taxi far quicker, there, and as long as he was going something or going somewhere he could keep the coiling of his insides to a minimum. Nobody knew what madness Sherlock could get himself into, if he was feeling reckless. And hell, when wasn’t Sherlock feeling restless? 

John stopped in his tracks when his phone vibrated in his pack pocket. He couldn’t remember turning it to vibrate—in fact, he probably didn’t want it doing anything except squealing to announce calls until he got to wherever it was he was going. In any case, John wasn’t about to ignore a telephone call from _Lestrade_ , of all people, at that time of night, so he raised the mobile to his ear as he craned his neck to watch the oncoming traffic. 

Lestrade didn’t give him much of a chance to utter a greeting. ‘John! What the hell’s going on? Sherlock’s texted me an address in Hampstead—’

‘Hampstead?’ John said, half gasping as his stomach did more than a few somersaults. ‘He’s in Hampstead?’

‘You’re not?’

‘Pardon?’ John asked, although he could read the pause in Lestrade’s train of thought. It was a dissociative thought, that Sherlock had just rushed off to a possible hostage situation (or crime scene, depending on how well the situation was handled) without John.

‘You’re not with him?’

‘No, I’m just as clueless as you are,’ John replied as he took a few more steps towards the road in front of him. He grunted in frustration when there were no taxis in sight. ‘Last I heard, Sherlock’s managed to lose the surveillance Mycroft has on him.’

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah,’ John said, commiserating as he began walking, giving each approaching car a beady-eyed stare before the glare of its headlights revealed the colour of the bodywork. Lestrade had paused, through over the separation of the line John could hear him shouting orders to his team.

‘Why?’ asked the detective inspector as soon as he returned his full attention to the phone.

John shrugged even though Lestrade couldn’t see him, and almost didn’t manage to dodged the spray of puddle water sent in his direction from a speeding car. ‘I think he’s had a tip-off. It was explain the secrecy.’ 

‘What, that network of his?’

‘That’s the one,’ John said, heart jumping as he caught sight of an on-duty cab and flung out his arm. ‘Squatter, most probably. Send me that address.' 

‘You’re going?’

Something about Lestrade’s surprise told John that he really wasn’t surprised at all.

‘Of course.’

‘Of course you are.’ Lestrade huffed good-naturedly; not for the first time, John was glad to count the detective inspector as a friend. ‘Look, I’m trying to get a team out, but it’s difficult. The higher-ups aren’t big on paying overtime on the basis of an unexplained text from a madman.’ 

John removed the phone from his ear to give the cabbie vague directions, and replaced it as he climbed inside the vehicle. ‘Just—just keep at it. We might need it. I’ll go now.’

‘Good luck, John.’

John sighed, and rubbed at his closed eyes as the cab pulled away from the curb. ‘God, I hope so.’

Lestrade muttered his brief goodbyes as a voice that sounded suspiciously like Sally came closer and closer to the phone with news from the chief super. John ended the call and let the hand holding his mobile fall into his lap. He didn’t want to hear them deciding whether or not to help Sherlock. When had he ever given them a failure? Sure, he was unkind and brash and manipulative, but he was on their side. At least, he was when he wanted to be. Why hadn’t they got that through their thick skulls yet? 

A muffled beeping sound announced the arrival of a text from Lestrade, and John relayed the exact location to the cabbie. He may have had an address, a street name and a number that would have told Sherlock everything he needed to know, but he didn’t recognize it. He might as well have been given directions to Timbuktu. But, even as John didn’t know where he was going, he didn’t need to. He’d drive all over London trying to find Sherlock if he had to. He was going to kill him, if he got there before the other guy did. He didn’t care if he had to jump to do it—the tall bastard.

So, without knowing where he was going, John went.

*

He wasn’t quite fully operational when the cab arrived at the address and slowed to a stop at the curb. Even when John clambered out and slammed the door behind him, he was distracted enough by the darkness around him that he had to be prompted to pay the rest of his fare when he miscounted. The cabbie gave him such a disgusted look that at any other time John would have flashed him a two-fingered salute as he drove away, but he settled for shaking his head at the cab as it disappeared around the corner before turning to the house in front of him. Time and place, after all.

Instead, John let his eyes play on the building that had previously only been a jumble of letters and numbers to him. It was grand—or, at least, had been. Like the rest of the houses on the street, the brick walls were shrouded by large trees, and it wasn’t sat too far back from the street. The pointed roof shot straight into the dark blue sky as if pointing out constellations. Still, John was more drawn to the condition of the place, the bits that were more than the wear and tear that all old houses bore. He couldn’t quite describe it; there, in the cool night air and with ghosts of rain dusting his nose, he couldn’t find the words. 

Not old, not neglected, just… haphazard. Left alone to weather a storm no one had expected was coming. The garden said enough; there were more weeds and planks of wood than there was grass, and the flowers in the beds looked more than a little worse for wear. The building didn’t stand out on the street, not exactly; it just seemed wilder, less human. It looked like what would happen when humans just upped and left, leaving both everything and nothing in their wake. Just the thing some wanted to cultivate, actually. Still, something about the crisp packets and Yorkie wrappers in the flowerbeds hidden by the fence said that no one had cultivated this place, not in a while. 

A quiet gust of wind blew the metal gate open, and John took his chance to slip through without disturbing anything, without making any sort of fuss. It clanged behind him, but somehow he doubted that was unusual. It would be more unusual if it was locked, when he thought about it properly. Except he didn’t even do that for very long, as when he toed his way along the chipped and cracked front path, John noticed a flickering light at the side of the building. It wasn’t enough to illuminate the garden, but it was just enough to tell anyone who was looking close enough that someone was in there. For how long, though? Not just that night—no, longer than that, longer than that if they were making themselves that much at home.

John lingered near one of the bushes that flanked the steps leading to the front door, and when the light disappeared for a moment before reappearing he clambered up them. The door was shut but open, and a gentle twist of the knob released the closing mechanism without so much as a squeak. The ground floor was dark except from the light spilling out from around a closed door to one side of the staircase; inside, the place was more decrepit than John had expected. Well, not _decrepit_ , exactly, but halfway there. Everything seemed to be covered in a generous layer of dust and residue. White sheets had obviously once been thrown over what was left of the furniture, but wind and time and passers-through had pulled them out of place. No one cared enough to put them back. 

Funnily enough, the most disconcerting thing was that all of the windows were bare. John could look straight through them into patches of star-studded sky and, for some reason, it just highlighted that there was nothing but glass and brick inbetween inside and out. Not much, really. Not much at all.

Voices from behind the closest closed door made John’s ears prick, and although he knew that there was a tense conversation there he couldn’t identify any specific words. It was probably for the best—he didn’t need to hear whatever it was that Sherlock was using to bait Ben. If it was even them—if it wasn’t, he was in much more trouble than he already was. Still, something about the rumbling of one half of the voices told him it was Sherlock. He’d know him from the way he breathed, let alone from hearing his voice. And who else would Sherlock give the time of day at this stage, if not Benjamin Wright himself? 

John did not, however, immediately turn to enter the door that separated them. Instead he turned to the grand, dusty staircase—Sherlock had bought him time to have a careful nose around, if nothing else. He could start upstairs and come back down, working his way to that one lit room. The first stair creaked a bit under his weight, but when he got two feet on it the protestation feel away. The railing was wobbly enough to be more of a hindrance than a help, and so John made his careful way up the stairs one foot at a time, testing each level as he went. The landing itself seemed innocuous, but then again, it was dark and there wasn’t much that John could see clearly through the murky nighttime. He kept looking, though. If he’d learnt anything from Sherlock, it was that it was always worth looking.

A glimpse of blonde hair caught his eye, and there she was, sat under an undressed window in a bathroom off the upstairs landing. Well, ‘sat’ could have been construed as a bit of an overstatement; crouched was more accurate, and she had clasped her knees to her chest. She hadn’t been roughed up, as far as John could tell from the distance between them, but she looked… tired. Not just like she’d lost a few hours sleep, not like she’d had a late-nighter with a particularly difficult bit of her dissertation. She looked exhausted with the toll of it all, the fear and the insecurity and the unknown. Her ponytail had slipped, and the chunks of blonde hair fell over her cheek, her ears, her chin instead of through the black elastic band. Her left side was covered in dust, with one or two streaks where she’d made the effort to try and brush it off before packing the entire thing in.

John padded up the last few steps and tested the landing with a gentle prodding foot to make sure it would bear his weight without squeaking. Nathalie started as he approached, keeping his steps light as he made his way towards the doorway. After the first involuntary jump she stilled, even as John held his palm out, open, in front of him, and her wide, dark eyes flickered between his hand and his face. He crept towards her, keeping his distance until she relaxed, unfolded, and dragged a hand over her smudged mascara. Her heavy, rattling sigh was the loudest thing that passed between them as John came to rest at the open doorway. 

‘It’s all right—you’re all right. My name is John Watson. I’m a doctor. Are you hurt?’ he whispered, just loud enough for her to hear him even if they remained on opposite sides of the room.

She shook her head, still glancing over his shoulder at the open doorway. He half turned to follow her gaze, just in case someone had just as much of a talent for moving silently as Sherlock did, and had followed him upstairs. There was nothing behind him, nothing but the soft glow of diffuse light. Emptiness, however, wasn’t _empty_ ; it felt more full than if there had been a crowd standing out there, looking in, and the soft rumble of voices from the ground floor filled John’s ears. Nathalie must have heard them too, as when there was an echo of a man shouting, she flinched.

John laid a hand on her shoulder, pushing away what was left of her ponytail. ‘The police are on their way.’

She nodded, her mouth a thin line as she stared at the chipped tile floor, and John gave her joint a gentle squeeze before he let his hand fall away. They sat there, both of them just thinking—wondering what came next—when Nathalie reached out a hand and gripped John’s forearm. 

‘He’s just—’ she started, her voice as much hushed as it was croaky, ‘just—gone _mental_.’

‘Shh, shh,’ John said as her face crumpled, eyes filling with tears. He must have been the catalyst, the culmination of everything that had happened. His arrival was the first thing that said it was okay to _feel_ , to _show_ what she felt. He heaved himself beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She let out a smothered sob, one that she managed to muffle with the shoulder of her fleece. John squeezed her tighter, and murmured, ‘It’s all right. We know.’

She might have nodded—but then again, she might have not. They just sat there for a moment, and John fished his phone out of his jacket pocket to send a quick text to Lestrade. _Nathalie—she’s here. She’s okay, I think. Get your arses here soon._ He flicked the volume control to silent as the device sent the message, preventing the whooshing sound from revealing they were there. Nathalie hiccuped as he replaced it in his pocket, obviously trying desperately to stay quieter than anyone in tears should be, but they both stiffened as there came the sounds of shouting from downstairs. From both male voices, this time. Not just one. Escalation, after all, was inevitable. 

‘I have to—’ John said as they disentangled themselves. Nathalie rubbed at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve, and set a steely look on her face that John wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with; Harry did the same thing, when the time called for it. ‘Look, I have to go and help him.’

‘The other man? He’s with you?’ she asked, the blotchiness around her nose and cheeks subsiding.

‘You’ve seen him?’

She shook her head, rubbing her calf with her palm. ‘No. No, I haven’t, but I heard him come in.’

‘Could you say when?’ John asked, glancing around behind him as the voices subsided once again. Nothing in the house seemed to be stable—not its foundations or its walls, and especially not the people inside.

‘I’ve stopped trying to tell time.’

John sighed, and rose to his full height. He offered Nathalie his hand and helped pull her to her feet as well. ‘I don’t blame you.’

‘It wasn’t long, though. Not long before you arrived.’ 

‘Oh, good. That’s a good sign,’ John said as he glanced around the room. ‘I’m going to go down. Can you lock yourself in here?’

Nathalie let out a snort of air through her nose, the closest that either of them could come to laughter. ‘I’m lucky that door’s even on its hinges. No lock in sight.’

‘Right.’ John sighed, then gestured to the construction paraphernalia that lay propped against every wall. ‘Shut the door, barricade yourself in. He shouldn’t notice a bit of quiet shuffling up here, not while he’s down there dealing with whatever Sherlock’s chucking at him. I’ll go down.’ 

She rubbed at her eyes with the cuff of her fleece again, and nodded as she swallowed. She’d already turned to pick up an abandoned box of slate tile when she glanced back and caught John’s eye. ‘He’s armed.’

‘We suspected that much,’ John said, nodding as he took careful steps through the doorway and onto the landing. ‘We’ll be all right.’

‘Thank you,’ Nathalie said as she followed him, pausing to hook her hand around the open door.

John felt his brow furrow, even though it wouldn’t be encouraging. She was safer, now, yes, but they weren’t safe on the whole. They had the most difficult part of the operation in front of them, and they had run out of time to prepare. Somehow John doubted that they could have prepared, really, but he still felt more anxious now there was nothing between them and the end of the case. The problem was that even at that point, when they’d found Nathalie and knew who took her, they didn’t know what was going to happen. _Anything_ could happen.

‘Don’t thank us yet.’

The way her face fell made him feel a surging temptation to apologise, but the way Nathalie’s features set as she nudged the door shut and closed it without as much as a squeak, John reckoned she could hold her own. Now she knew she _wasn’t_ on her own, she could do it. They could try, at least, and be a little bit ahead of the game with her on their side.

*

There was no need for him to look around the rest of the upper floor now that he’d found Nathalie, so John took the quickest and quietest way back down to where he;d heard Sherlock’s voice. One or two of the steps creaked, and John froze when he accidentally nudged a key ring of paint samples off the edge of the banister. Still, there was no hitch in the conversation behind the door, so John wasted no time fretting about soft thumps and began his careful approach to the door he’d hoped to keep shut for a little longer.

Well, they’d best just get on with it, shouldn’t they? 

His heart beat harder and harder against the inside of his chest as John got closer. It almost crashed its way out when he got near enough to pick out distinct words and phrases instead of just hear the distinctive murmur of conversation.

‘What’re you on about?’

That must have been Wright, judging by the panic in his voice and the fact he was attempting to mask it with anger. There was something reckless, something unhinged, something _manic_ about his indignation, though, that made John grasp at his lower back, where he normally concealed his handgun. His fingers didn’t met metal, though, and he could virtually feel the shot of dread coursing around his body as he laid his hand against nothing more than skin-warmed cotton. A heavy swallow and a few deep breaths later, John returned his attention to the words hidden from him. He didn’t need a firearm to defend them, after all.

‘Never mind, obviously you become grammatically detached when you’re overexcited.’

John flexed his fingers; he could have punched Sherlock for being such a smartarse. Was he _trying_ to get himself killed? John was sure that he couldn’t possibly be the only persona in the world to occasionally want to sock Sherlock one, and he was entirely calm and rational. There was every chance that someone as worked up as Wright wouldn’t stop at one well-aimed punch.

There were one or two heavy steps, then the clatter of some empty mental being kicked, and Wright’s raised voice pierced the tinny reverberations. **‘** And what if I killed you?’

John took two quick steps closer, sidestepping a paint tray filled with dried builder’s white, but halted as Sherlock’s calm reply sounded through the silence and the pounding of his heart.

‘Trust me, it won’t help.’

Sherlock had just told him the police knew, though John couldn’t really tell if Wright had twigged that. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he hadn’t. John knew from personal experience that sometimes the most obvious things eluded you in the sort of state the young man was in. He’d probably not notice if Sherlock implied he’d triggered a silent alarm and notified MI-5, either.

Wright’s terse, clipped response didn’t inspire confidence in the idea that he’d come quietly. After glancing up to the empty landing and out to the quiet street, John picked up his feet and began to creep closer. He wasn’t about to be stuck too far away to help if he was needed—if Sherlock needed him.

Then, mid-creep, his toe clipped something and John was horizontal. He tried in vain to think what it could have been, but whether or not he’d tripped over the leg of a discarded rocking chair or a new and ready-to-be installed toilet seat was irrelevant. The end result was the same. He flew into the door he had been creeping towards, and it fell open with a clatter as he managed to keep himself relatively upright by catching, and latching onto, its rusted door handle.

It was surprising, really, how the first thing John noticed when he opened his eyes was that he had to close them again. Damn, that was bright. It shouldn’t have been, no, but he’d been crouched in the darkness for long enough to make any sort of light burn. He remained where he was, prostrate except for one hand on the door and another resting on a pile of floorboards, and blinked. His uncouth arrival seemed to have surprised not only him, stunned them all into what felt like an hour of silence. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, though, when time caught up with them.

There was horror in Sherlock’s eyes, in that moment, though John couldn’t tell if it was horror at him being there or horror at the fact he’d just fucked everything up in the most catastrophic way possible. The expression was removed almost immediately, however, and the blank look left on his face was enough to make John turn away and settle on the only other face in the room.

Wright didn’t look especially pleased, either. He was smaller than John had expected. Moriarty had been, too, but then wasn’t the moment to be pondering that particular fact.

‘Who the fuck is this?’ said Wright with a snarl. The metallic glint of the barrel of the gun in his hand shone in the artificial light as he jerked it in John’s direction. ‘Is he with you?’

‘You don’t want to know the half of it,’ muttered John as he scrambled to his feet. It was just as good a time as any to be flippant, even if Sherlock did shoot him an odd look. They were in the thick of it now, no point glossing over that.

Wright ignored him. ‘You said you were _alone_!’ 

Sherlock shrugged. ‘I believed that I was.’

Ah, throwing the truth at lies. That always worked.

John wanted to move from where he stood, covered in dust and paint flecks, and hover closer to Sherlock’s shoulder, but the curl in the young man’s lip kept him where he was. The flailing of the firearm was a decent deterrent as well; John could have disarmed him, maybe, if he had more time to think.

‘Well, we’re done here, now, aren’t we?’

There was something in Wright’s tone that heavily suggested he wasn’t looking for answers. His light eyes were panicked, manic, desperate. He knew he was cornered—he was more dangerous, then, more dangerous than he would have been otherwise. _God_ , Sherlock—no, it wasn’t just his fault, his baiting. This would have happened if anyone had stumbled upon him. It was probably a good thing it was them, then.

‘I wouldn’t say so,’ Sherlock replied, calm as ever, as he pulled his leather gloves from his pocket and shoved them on his pale hands. ‘I know a few people who’d appreciate a word with you.’

Wright’s brow furrowed so deeply John wondered if it would ever go back to normal. 

Sherlock continued. ‘Your friend Colin, for one.’

The young man flinched away from Sherlock’s smooth voice and raised his hoarse one in response. ‘Don’t you _dare_!’

Low, dark, threatening. Wright should have seemed like a petulant child—he was one, really—but there was an element of his voice and the snarl on his face that reminded John that they were dealing with someone who was unhinged. Well, unhinged might be a bit far… compromised. Emotionally compromised, and already likely to be violent without the extra incentive. He was already moving closer to Sherlock, flexing his fingers around the grip of the handgun, hackles raised. Even in the ratty sweatshirt, he was a force to be reckoned with, a loose cannon. 

One wrong move, and _bang_ —you’re dead.

Even so, John thought it couldn’t hurt to try a different approach. One that didn’t involve slinging insults.

‘Why, Ben?’ he asked, voice as steady and gentle as he could make it. ‘Why did you do it?’ 

Wright looked at him then, properly, for the first time. John could see he was all blond hair and blue eyes and youth and terror, really, and it was disconcerting to see all that mangled with the seething rage that had always hidden somewhere before then. But he looked at him, held his gaze, until Wright couldn’t do it anymore.

He teetered on the edge of the story, where the lies stopped and the fairy tales began. And yet he didn’t fall, and instead stood with mustered resolve and raised his shaking hands. This was his way out, or at least that’s what he must have thought. The way the gun rested in his hands was incorrect, John could see that from the other side of the room, but his index finger was hovering over the trigger and the barrel was pointed straight at him. Even a bad shot could get lucky once in a while.

‘No!’ barked Sherlock, and his reward for showing _his_ cards was Wright redirecting his quivering aim at Sherlock’s torso.

John took a heavy step towards the detective. ‘Don’t—’

That earned him another threat on his life.

Sherlock snapped his unflinching attention from Wright to where John stood, frozen. ‘John—’

The gun returned its unsteady gaze to Sherlock’s chest, and Wright shut one eye.

John dove towards Sherlock.

There was the crack of a gunshot, and he crumpled.

John could hear himself hit the floor before he felt it; the metallic rattle of the gun as it hit the floor and running feet registered just before the pain did. White—white noise. He might have yelled. Then again, he might have not. In any case, the a distant door slammed just as Sherlock—it must have been Sherlock, who else could it be?—slammed into his legs, knees on either side of John’s hips. He pushed his hands against John’s side—that’s where it was, was it? The pain was everywhere _, everywhere_ —and then someone hissed. Him, or Sherlock? Either was possible, he couldn’t tell.

A muffled scream made its way downstairs. 

He scrabbled for purchase against Sherlock’s upper arm.  ‘Nathalie—’

‘John.' 

‘Go and get Nathalie—’

His arm fell away.

‘ _John.’_

There was a please hidden in there somewhere. John was surprised he could tell, then, when they were on the floor and close to the edge. He stopped asking, stopped trying to get Sherlock to do something he wouldn’t. He wanted… what did he want? Did it matter, now, when there was the warm stickiness of blood on his shirt and his side and Sherlock’s hand?

Then there was a thump, a distant one, and someone was breathing quickly. Too quickly. Was it him? Maybe. Too difficult to tell. Gasps falling away to nothing. Clutching at something that wasn’t there. It was cold, so _cold_ , yet there he was, sweating like he was on some sun-plastered beach.

The tone of the same number blared through the blood rushing past his ears, three depressions of the keyboard.

‘Ambulance,’ Sherlock barked, and that sound must have been him swallowing heavily before he rattled off their location and the situation. John felt oddly out of place, like he was cluttering up the scene, like he was more trouble than he was worth, but the choking sound that came from above him as the phone was discarded against the unfinished floor said otherwise. The plastic and glass scraped across the surface, rattling as Sherlock fought with his unruly hands to apply the right amount of pressure. John wanted to help, _wished_ he could help, but could only arch his neck back as the sweat dried, cooled, replaced on his clammy skin.

He was shaking. It took John a moment to realise it, but he was shaking. That was the bit he hated most, about this. The first concrete sign you were losing control, losing the battle. The first bits, the clamminess, the sweating, the thready pulse—you could argue all of those were psychological, you could convince yourself you’d worked yourself into a tizzy after a graze. The shaking? No, John had never managed to panic himself into a shake. That was when he _knew_. When he started to clench his jaw and squeeze his eyes shut. When he could see how it was going to end. Just another event to tag on to his list of times he wished he didn’t know what would happen to him—he wished he hadn’t seen men, friends, colleagues wheeled in and fade and fade fast.

John might have cried out when Sherlock got up, his weight disappearing from either side of his legs. He might have groaned, or gritted his teeth, but there was no way of telling when he was gulping down air like a fish would gulp water. There was a rustling—he was noticing those sounds now, quiet ones he’d ignore at any other time that were suddenly roaring through the silence—and then Sherlock’s coat was on him, draped over him like some heavy, expensive shock blanket, and all John took from it was _Sherlock_. It smelled like him, like his soap and his cologne and _them_.

It was stupid, really, that that—of all things—would make him smile an odd sort of grimace as Sherlock slipped a hand under the side of the material to reapply pressure. This _, this_ , was how John had expected it to happen.

Still, it didn’t quite feel like how it was _supposed_ to happen. 

Leather slipped against leather as John slipped his gloved hand into Sherlock’s, and he used what felt like the last remnants of his adrenaline to give it a comforting squeeze. It’d be okay. Everything would be okay, even if he ended up dead. Everything would be _okay_ —

There was a certain appeal to dying. 

At least, dying before Sherlock got a chance to.


	11. Chapter 11

Darkness had never felt more like home, more like the periphery of something akin to his bed.

Silence had never been more present. It stood between him and the distant noise. 

Someone may have spoken to him, but the words were no more than meaningless sounds.

It was all he could do to vaguely vomit and recede into the warm blackness.

*

The next thing that occurred to him was that he needed answers, but what the questions were he couldn’t fathom. 

‘Nathalie—’ 

His voice was hoarse; the name atrophied on his dry tongue. 

‘She’s fine.’

‘And Ben—’ 

‘Is in police custody, Dr Watson. Now, it’s important that you relax…’

A hand was laid on his shoulder; it felt much further away than it should have done.

*

He was having a disagreement with his eyelids.

John very much wanted to open his eyes, but for some reason found that the task was more difficult that it should have been. The sheets didn’t feel right for his bed either, too starched and too stiff for his liking. And that definitely wasn’t his pillow under his head. It wasn’t even feather down. Whatever Sherlock was playing at, he wasn’t doing it very well if he thought John wasn’t about to know when he wasn’t in his own bed. 

Except… what was that beeping? God, he was going to kill Sherlock if he’d set the smoke alarm off again. But—no, that couldn’t be right, could it? Sherlock had shot the alarm the month before when neither of them could figure out how to turn it off. So that couldn’t be it. Alarm clock, maybe? It’d be just about the right time to get up if he’d fallen back asleep when he’d woken up in the night. That  _had_  been an odd dream, Sherlock rushing out to follow a suspect… but he used his phone for an alarm, and he’d definitely not choose a sound quite so damn annoying…

He tried to shift his weight in the bed, but a sharp pain in his abdomen kept him in place. When had that happened?

Why did he feel so fucking  _odd_?

Was there something biting on his finger?

Oh, no, there wasn’t. That was definitely a pulse oximeter.

‘Well,  _shit,_ ’ he muttered, his mouth dry and uncomfortable. He must have been out for a while.

‘I couldn’t have put it better myself, Dr Watson,’ said a voice from somewhere on his left.

John forced himself to open his eyes, blinking heavily against the bright lights and sterile whites of the hospital recovery room. His voice croaked and he could swear he could feel his throat crack as he swallowed around nothing. God, it all came back too quickly, too many blinding shots of adrenaline and terror, the split second between the sound of the shot and the pain that felt like eternity.

The nurse shook her head at him with pursed lips, checking the readouts from the machines monitoring his blood pressure and heart rate. ‘So, Dr John Watson, I should really introduce myself, shouldn’t I? Stella Farley, PACU nurse. We’ve spoken, but I don’t think you’ll remember that.’

It took him a moment to realise that she meant that they’d spoken earlier on and not in the past. She was right. He didn’t remember. He didn’t remember the needles going into his hand either, or arriving, or anything beyond Sherlock’s hand in his. 

‘You were shot,’ Stella continued. ‘The bullet struck the abdominal wall, but you were lucky. It slowed down enough that the damage to your organs was relatively slight compared to the alternative.’

John shuddered—he didn’t have to be told what the alternative was. He’d seen it in person far too many times to count.

Stella patted his forearm gently as she took note of the readings on the machines that surrounded John’s bed. ‘When you arrived, there was significant internal bleeding and you were in advanced-stage hypovolemic shock. We had to rush you into surgery. The surgeon managed to retrieve the bullet—it’s been given to the police as part of their investigation.’

The information seemed to come out of her mouth and linger somewhere outside his own head, though John was cognizant enough to know that what she was telling him was good news. The fact he knew the difference between good and bad news was good news. Whether he’d be able to remember it was debatable, although he knew himself well enough to be relatively confident he’d reached a point where he  _would_  remember.

‘As you may be able to gather, Dr Watson, you’re stable. We were able to stop the bleeding and repair the damage done to your organs, as well as administer an essential blood transfusion. You’re not quite out of the woods, and you’ll be here for observation for a while yet. You can be moved to a hospital room once the anaesthetist is happy with your progress.’

John swallowed, winching as he did so. ‘How long…’

‘You’ve been out of surgery for near on three hours.’

Right. Well, then. It was about time for a nap, then, wasn’t it?

‘Don’t worry, Dr Watson.’ Stella’s voice was calm and comforting. ‘We’ll take care of you.’

John nodded, confident that they would, as he returned to sleep.

*

The next time John woke, he felt marginally brighter. Of course, that might have just been his muddled mind protecting him from the fact he should have felt worse, but he didn’t feel quite so wobbly and took that as a good sign. He even managed to keep a single ice chip down. The anaesthetist seemed to think there were a few more good signs, because the next thing John knew he was being told he could be moved out of the PACU and into another hospital room. Even though the idea of vigorous movement provoked a bit more dizziness than he was comfortable with, they managed all right and before long Stella was double-checking his readings again in the new location. 

He’d read about it enough in his schooldays, but even so, John was surprised at how tired he was after so little exertion. All he’d done was allow himself to be wheeled from one place to another, answering certain essential questions when needed. Still, it was expected. And at least he wasn’t doubled over in pain. Whatever was in that IV was doing wonders. He didn’t even feel that sick. (Maybe just a bit.)

‘You’ve got a visitor, by the way. One who’s rather inpatient to see you.’

John’s closed eyes blinked open. He was rather sure that even in his mildly drugged-up state he could guess who that was. ‘Tall? Dark?’

‘And handsome?’ Stella interrupted, her voice distinctly tinged with humour.

‘Well, I can’t exactly argue with that, can I?’ His voice sounded slow and a just a bit too pleased; John blamed that on the medication. ‘Big, flapping coat?’ he continued—as if Sherlock really needed more introduction. ‘Snappy? Constantly scowling?’

She sighed heavily, as if she’d already had to deal with more than Sherlock’s scowls. ‘He’s a terror.’ 

‘Could you…’ John paused, the words stuck in his sore throat, as he found he was unsure of himself and what exactly he was asking for. He wasn’t sure if Sherlock really understood how to act when someone was seriously injured. Last time he’d had anything significantly wrong with him, the bloody bastard had taken it upon himself to cure him with a good dose of chasing a serial killer through central London.

(Still. He’d take the chance.)

‘Well, could you let him in?’

It was obvious they weren’t related. Anyone who even glanced at the news on a miniscule smartphone screen once a fortnight knew Sherlock Holmes and John Watson and their painfully protected and allegedly professional relationship. But even so, she smiled and hooked John’s chart on the end of his bed.

‘I was wondering when you were going to ask. He’ll be thrilled.’

John shook his head, and vividly recalled the first night he’d ever spent with Sherlock. He’d jumped for joy when someone committed suicide. ‘You don’t want to know what else elicits that reaction.’

Stella gave him a disparaging glance, and turned to make her way out of the room. John had already succumbed to the temptation to close his eyes when he heard the clicking of her shoes against the speckled tiled floors stop, and he wrenched his eyes open to see that she’d turned back towards him once more. 

She seemed to be debating whether or not to speak, but in the end, the words came out of her mouth anyway. ‘In case he doesn’t tell you, he’s not left you once. He arrived in the ambulance with you, threw a small tantrum when they wouldn’t let him sit with you after surgery, and has stood outside that door ever since we wheeled you in here.’

John tutted. ‘Do apologize to everyone he’s insulted on my behalf.’

‘There aren’t enough hours in the day,’ she said, although her tone hinted that she knew that John was deflecting.

‘Why are you telling me this, anyway?’

‘Because in my experience with men, you lot are  _awful_  with words.’

John was tempted to say, ‘Not him,’ with an ever-so-slightly resentful snort, but he didn’t. He knew what she meant; Sherlock was a brilliant man with a brilliant mind but with a complete inability to express his feelings. His words were for intimidation and manipulation, not the expression of the abstract idea of the love he’d thought he’d only ever know in theory.

John knew he wasn’t much better, either.

He worried the edge of the starched white sheet with his fingers, and caught her eye. ‘Thank you.’

Stella nodded. ‘No need. Just doing my job, Dr Watson. I’ll let him know you’re awake, and someone will be back to check on you in a bit.’ 

The clicking of her shoes resumed, but this time John called out before she reached the threshold that would take her outside the private room. ‘Wait, what about visiting hours?’

She didn’t turn around, but her tone was unmistakable. ‘What about them, Dr Watson?’

John felt the smile creep across his face despite the tremors in his hands.

 _Thank you_.

* 

Time came to a standstill when the door clicked shut behind Sherlock. Not in the soppy, vomit-inducing romantic way that John had heard so many times before in his life; no, it was more violent than that. More despairing. Time stopped for no man, yet it had for him. John’s time was split between what had happened then and what was happening now; there was nothing separating the events in Hampstead and his hospital bed. Yet for Sherlock—and, John supposed, everyone else out there, but he really only cared about Sherlock—time had marched on, and on, and on. John’s time may have stopped, but everyone else’s had still passed.

It looked like it had given Sherlock a good clobber on its way out, as well. As smooth as the man normally looked, as pristine and as thoughtful, everything about him was crumpled. What would have usually stopped at a crinkle of a shirt or a crease in a jacket passed through to every fiber of his being. He looked roughed up, as if something had hit him at a high velocity and he hadn’t quite got himself back yet. 

John caught his eye, but the grey that normally latched on to the details of life flitted away. He wanted to reach out, tell Sherlock that he was all right and so was he and why the hell was he worried, he’d only been shot for God’s sake, nothing like the almost-bomb at the pool and yet, he couldn’t. Well, he couldn’t because he’d been tucked in so tightly he’d have to wriggle his way out of the cotton cocoon and his arms still felt too heavy to do anything useful with and Sherlock was well out of reach anyway, but what kept his impulse quelled was the way Sherlock looked if he might bolt if John as much as flinched in his direction.

So he waited. God knows he’d done enough of that in his lifetime for five more minutes not to make much of a difference.

Sherlock looked as if he was trying to extrapolate data from the light fittings when he made his first attempt at words. It didn’t end well—it had barely begun before he’d bit back his breath. John shifted his gaze back to him, refusing to let either of them retreat from one another again and determined not to let the creeping feeling of sleep take him before they’d sorted something out. Sherlock opened and closed his mouth one more time before he finally managed a sentence. 

‘Are you all right now?’

His voice was small, too small for the Sherlock who could command a room’s attention with a well-chosen syllable. He swallowed around his question so hard that John could see his throat constrict; the ubiquitous scarf and coat were nowhere to be seen. Even if he had just been arguing for England and generally been in a middle of a strop in a public hospital, when he’d seen John, that all fell away. Sherlock had been stripped down to his most vulnerable level, with wide eyes and shuddering voice and shaking hands. 

His helplessness was worse to watch than tears.

‘Just about, yeah,’ John croaked, his voice as bright as he could muster through the lie. ‘You?’

What flashed across Sherlock’s face could have been called relief, but there wasn’t nearly enough of it there to count. ‘All right.’

The silence that fell between them was punctuated by the low hum of machines, of monitoring, and John—who was normally all for a quiet sit down when the opportunity presented itself—wanted nothing more than sound. Any sort of sound would have done, but Sherlock’s voice would have been better. That was home, wasn’t it? The proper version of Sherlock’s voice, the one that stripped people down and refused to build them back up again, the voice that rolled John’s name on his tongue as if it was consecrated. And yet, Sherlock loomed silently over his shoulder as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do.

Then again, instinct hadn’t ever let him down too badly.

John took his time in resting his his hand over the bone and flesh of Sherlock’s hip, but the joint was familiar to him even through the layers of shirt and trousers. He knew Sherlock wouldn’t want to sit down, not yet, and he’d never be one to hold onto John’s hand when it would have been the most conspicuous thing in the room, so he went for the only thing that he could do. Contact—contact that only they had. John flexed his fingers, massaging the area in an attempt to say  _Look, Sherlock. I’m here. I’m alive. You’re all right, I’m all right, Lestrade’ll get us another murder tomorrow. I’ll just have a bit of a kip now._

With words, John thought it’d be best to stick with the obvious. ‘What happened to your coat?’

‘Mycroft stole it and had it sent to the cleaners.’

A smile tugged at the corner of John’s mouth. ‘Helpful of him.’

‘There was talk of taking it as evidence.’

John smirked then, while his eyes slipped closed for a moment. The mental images of Mycroft sneaking around with a giant of a coat and Lestrade trying to wrestle it from him appeared in his head as a welcome dreamscape. ‘I bet that went down a treat.’

What quivered on Sherlock’s mouth didn't equal half a smile. John gave the joint another squeeze— _Go on, sit down, you’ll be all right—_ and his hand slipped back to the top of his sheets. Sherlock’s gaze followed, and John couldn’t help but notice his fingers twitch as if they wanted to wrap around or brush some bit of John’s skin. Sherlock held himself back, though for the life of him John couldn’t think why; he was  _fine_ , really just bloody tired and a bit sick and very much thankful that Sherlock was there, even if he didn’t know why.

Sherlock’s face as he turned to look at John’s was lost, uncomfortable.  _I don’t know what to do, John._

John was surprised he even needed to be told. ‘Stay.’

The word was a breathed order, half whispered and half spoken as John came head to head with overwhelming fatigue. Even through his closed eyes and slowing breaths, he could hear Sherlock fold himself into the cramped upholstered chair beside John’s head faster than a cat would have sunk its claws into the awful patterned fabric. (John didn’t have to have his eyes open to see that catastrophe, either.) And, for the first time since he was wheeled into the bloody place, he consciously decided to give in to sleep, confident that Sherlock would still be there when he woke.

*

When John awoke for the third time, he felt much better than he did the last—even if Sherlock did immediately inform him that he’d only been asleep for two hours and fifty-three minutes. John had a vague memory of speaking to Anthea, and a stirring suspicion he'd just lost the last of his dignity. 

Sherlock hadn’t touched the sandwich that lay in the Waitrose bag near his feet. Anthea (or Mycroft—John couldn’t always tell who was in charge of who) must have brought it by. At first, John thought Sherlock was just being awkward (like he usually was), then it occurred to him that maybe Mycroft had exercised some sort of fraternal prank regarding sandwich filling (which was more likely than it should have been, given that it  _was_  Mycroft and Sherlock.) He wouldn’t have put it past Mycroft to interfere in the production lines of national food retailers in any case, let alone one where he could annoy the hell out of his brother. Though why he thought he could convince his brother to eat at a time like this was anyone’s guess. Sherlock probably thought he had a few days left before he needed another meal. It wasn’t as if he was exerting himself.

Still, when none of John’s brief, sleep-ridden remarks got anything more than a vaguely appropriate grunt in response, John realised that Sherlock was quite preoccupied. In his own head, of course, in something like his mind palace but not as insular. As John found that he was rapidly tiring again, having done not much more than glanced around the room, Sherlock observed. He seemed to be watching him, watching each and every breath and twitch, trying to catalog what was new and what was old, what was wrong and what was right, what was broken and what was whole. It was his odd way of caring.

And because John was just as barking mad as Sherlock was, he let him.

After all, the sandwich would keep.

* 

‘Sherlock, if you don’t want to stay, you don’t have to.’

John knew he’d asked him to stay—and he still wanted him to—but the tension in Sherlock’s limbs and face had returned, and they hadn’t said a word to each other since the late afternoon, and by the time on Sherlock’s watch they were rapidly approaching evening. Not that it wasn’t abnormal for that to happen, but when John was actively  _trying_ to talk to Sherlock and receiving nothing but a blank stare in response he thought it might be better if Sherlock went home before he was off to the nurses station to patch up another bloodied cheekbone. Not that John would be able to aim properly. 

He watched the detective now, the edge of his pillow a blurry obstruction to his vision. Sherlock had looked at him for a moment, chin propped on his hands, and then away. It was difficult to understand why a man so eloquent when he had a gun pointed at his chest could be so damn reticent when it was just them in a hospital room. He didn’t make any move to leave, though, and John shook his head.

‘Fine.’

Sherlock hummed then, though whether it was in agreement or in mockery of John’s apparently inconsiderate need for companionship was debatable. The sound gave John just enough to keep him quite content for another ten minutes, but contentment did not still his mind. There were questions that he’d thought last night that were only just creeping back. Other things had seemed more important; other things had  _been_  more important. The bullet in his abdomen, for one, and the girl who’d had the room upstairs. Sherlock. Always bloody Sherlock. 

John turned his head, attempting to fix the unresponsive man in the chair with a stern look. ‘Why did you go, Sherlock?’ 

Sherlock raised his head to meet John’s gaze, and wrinkled his nose in a half-frown. ‘Go where?’

‘You know what I’m talking about.’

Except the question he was really asking was  _Why did you leave me, Sherlock?_ , and they both knew it.

The brief sentence fragment that escaped Sherlock’s mouth had been mildly surprising; they’d been talking through crocked eyebrows for too long to be immediately comfortable using words. They were still trapped in one long loaded pause, but it was cracking.

John tried again, voice softer and more coaxing even though it wouldn’t work on Sherlock.  ‘I can tell, you know. Why you’re quiet.’ 

‘You can’t tell. You can guess.’ Sherlock’s terse voice spoke to the door handle instead of John’s face. 

‘I can guess correctly, then,’ said John, staring at an errant curl that had taken up residence above Sherlock’s left eyebrow. ‘So… why?’

There was a pause, and then: ‘I shouted.’

John could have laughed, though the fact his breathing was enough trouble put him off. It was a pathetic excuse from anyone, let alone Sherlock bloody Holmes. ‘Not loudly enough, evidently. And when you noticed that I wasn’t sitting in the cab with you? I gather that you did take a cab, because I can’t imagine you on the Tube by yourself  _not_  covered in blood and wielding a harpoon.’ 

Sherlock let a little half-smile slip through then, just enough to twinge the edge of his lips, but it died away quickly.

‘I assumed… well, I thought…’ He met John’s gaze then, as he stumbled over words, as if he expected John to suggest the right one. When he got no response apart from an expectant face, Sherlock turned away again. That door handle was his new bloody best friend. ‘I… got a bit caught up in the moment.’

That was an even worse excuse (or explanation, whatever the hell Sherlock thought it was) than the last time.

John shook his head and returned to staring at the tiled ceiling, the grey speckles blurring in and out of focus; he wasn’t about to begin that particular conversation if Sherlock couldn’t see what he was asking. ‘Of all people, I’d have thought you would have known what happens when you assume.’

He didn’t know why he came out with that anecdote; he hadn’t heard it since he’d sat through his Maths GCSE coursework and they were covering proofs. Must be the morphine, bringing things back. It seemed to be the only thing he could grasp onto in that sentence; it was petty, and pedantic. Sherlock didn’t  _assume_. He made some logical jumps that no one could follow but they were generally correct, or at least on the right path. Sherlock didn’t get  _caught up in the moment_  enough to forget where John was, he just forgot some of the more basic social niceties. Sherlock didn’t  _think_ , he deduced.

Sherlock cleared his throat, a low rasping that sounded familiar though the awkward silence even though it shouldn’t have, and John strained his eyes to watch his mouth form the words that jumped from his throat. 

‘I shot you.’ 

John frowned. ‘No, that wasn’t  _quite_  the result I was referring to.’ 

‘I shot you, John.’ Sherlock sounded more definite, more convinced—more dangerous.

‘No, you didn’t,’ John countered, spotting a group of speckles that looked uncannily like a spoon. ‘You would’ve missed, anyway.’

 Sherlock shot him a look that could only have been more disbelieving if John had said he was a llama. John shook his head. ‘I’ve seen you try and aim, Sherlock. It’s consistently shit.’

‘I had you shot.’

John shrugged and raised and eyebrow; they were being ridiculous now. ‘Would’ve been expensive.’

‘John!’

He turned back to his partner then, just because of the way his name came out of Sherlock’s mouth. It came out a lot—Sherlock used his name much more often than other people did—but never like that. Never… pleading was too strong a word, although it was halfway there.

John reached out from his place on the hospital bed and grasped the front of Sherlock’s shirt as best he could—his movement was still a bit wobbly. ‘Shut up, Sherlock. Just shut—up.’ 

Sherlock did as he was told, for once. He must have cottoned on quickly, too, for John only had to give the cotton a weak tug for the detective to ease himself out of the chair and towards the side of John’s bed. John seized Sherlock’s chin, his fingertips meeting just enough stubble to graze, and pulled Sherlock to his lips. He felt as if he must have done something right when Sherlock sighed through his nose and supported his weight with a hand on the bedspread, and John could feel him relax against his skin. 

They pulled apart when something in Sherlock’s neck cracked. John smiled against Sherlock’s mouth as the detective pressed another chaste kiss to John’s—a thank you, in its own way. ‘You said ‘dangerous,’ and here I am.’

‘I never said you could quote me.’

‘God, you’re a right sod.’

That seemed to trigger something in Sherlock’s mind, for as he eased himself back into his chair (and it was  _his_  chair, it was the chair that husbands and wives and children took and he was all those and more) the softer face with which he’d touched John tightened. 

‘What is it now?’ John asked, not even bothering to go back to speckle-gazing.

Except this time, Sherlock didn’t have as much trouble finding words. ‘I called Harry.’

‘ _You_  did?’

John was unconvinced that Sherlock had used entirely appropriate language in his relaying of that particular fact.

‘Mycroft had her contacted and informed.’

‘Oh, pretty much the same thing then,’ said John, gesturing vaguely against his bedsheets before continuing, ‘and, for God’s sake, why?!’ 

Sherlock took a little longer answering that one, and was infinitesimally quieter. ‘I couldn’t see you.’

‘What?’

‘They wouldn’t let me in, or tell me anything—’

‘Not that you need anyone to tell you anything when you want to know an answer.’

Sherlock became more terse, and less likely to let his eyes flit to meet John’s, as he responded. ‘Even I find it difficult to deduce the situation when my only glance at it was for seven seconds in a crowded hallway when I was already in a rather problematic argument with the head nurse, John!’

‘They said you’d been pissy,’ John said. Sherlock cocked an eyebrow at the tiled floor. ‘Fine, not in so many words. But what does any of this have to do with Harry?’

‘They kept asking for family members, relations.’

Then John understood.

_Family is all we have in the end._

John—John was Sherlock’s family, and vice versa. They knew that, everyone they knew knew that. Yet, they weren’t, and Sherlock had been desperate just to be there—to see, to observe, to understand, perhaps even to hold his hand and hope if the situation had turned out to be a lot worse than it had been. He’d… not panicked, that would be taking it too far, but close. He’d worried. He’d wanted, and for once, he hadn’t got it.

‘If I could get one to approve my presence,’ Sherlock continued, oblivious to the fact that John had turned to look at him with a gaze much softer than the previous one, ‘then I wouldn’t have had to wait until you were conscious.’

‘So you called Harry.’ John’s voice was steady, steadier than Sherlock’s for once, and perceptive. (Perception was a funny thing, on strong painkillers.)

Sherlock nodded, and it was only when his head stilled that he turned to meet John’s eyes. He’d obviously expected to find something much different there—mockery, perhaps, or dismissiveness—as his eyes widened by a fraction so small that only a doctor would notice. 

John would have reached out in any other situation, and hauled Sherlock onto the bed with him, but he knew how much that sort of couple annoyed the nurses so there wasn’t much he could offer Sherlock apart from the brief reappearance of a warm hand on the back of his neck. He could have sworn that Sherlock leaned ever so slightly closer to where he lay trapped under too-tightly tucked sheets, but that may have just been wishful thinking. 

‘You really are a big sop, aren’t you?’ John said, a smile spreading over his features even if Sherlock didn’t return it.

He didn’t answer, either, but they remained there in their stillness. This time, silence didn’t feel as wrong as it had before, and the gentle brushing of John’s fingertips over Sherlock’s skin spoke many more words than they could have crafted in three weeks of constant work. It was only when the reality of what Sherlock told him in the first place had sunk in that John let his hand slip back onto his bed. 

‘Oh, God, that means Harry’s coming. When—?’

Sherlock sighed; on the surface, he appeared as displeased about the situation as John was. ‘Already on her way.’

‘Oh, fucking buggering  _shit_!’

John was too worried about how on earth he was supposed to survive an unannounced visit from Harry when he was already rather incapacitated to notice Sherlock’s smirking behind the evening paper.

*

Just around the time Harry’s train would have passed York (oh, why couldn’t Newcastle be twice the distance away from London?), Sherlock started pacing. John, as usual, had no bloody idea why.

Well, he had a little bit more of an idea that he normally would, but it was vague and made up of no more than his own suspicions of Sherlock’s mental state. Emotional state, more like. But they were just that—suspicions—and they’d both had enough to deal with in the past twelve hours alone before they came within twenty yards of that particular kettle of fish. John settled for watching him, keeping an eye on the set of his shoulders and the length of his stride. Being cooped up in a hospital room was difficult enough for anyone, especially someone awaiting the arrival of some unknown and unforeseen relative, but Sherlock was an amalgamation of every single annoyance that passed through other people’s heads. He could wreak havok, if he wanted to, but John knew in this case he’d probably end up wreaking it on himself. 

He’d done it before, after all. 

‘Sherlock,’ John said into the empty space in front of him, which Sherlock had passed through on his journey from one wall to another. It didn’t do anything, so John steeled himself to repetition. ‘ _Sherlock_.’

Within a moment, Sherlock had stopped and somehow crossed the room to grasp John’s head in his hands. His warm palms pressed against John’s jaw and cheek, with a finger or two grazing his orbital bone; Sherlock didn’t pull at him—only held him steady as he lowered his own head to kiss him.

The seams and creases of Sherlock’s shirt felt so much more like home than anything John could think of. Even as he lifted a hand to touch Sherlock’s cheek, he found that he wanted very much to be back home, with Sherlock in his bed or with them both in a pile on the sofa. It felt irrational, and like it was one of his worst ideas, but it only became stronger as Sherlock pulled away from his mouth and pressed a second kiss to John’s brow.

He was gone just as quickly as he arrived—as bloody usual.

‘What was that for?’

Sherlock looked around at John, with his hands on his hips and a decidedly unfocused expression. ‘What was what?’

‘That.’ John gestured between them. ‘Not that I’m complaining, mind.’

‘I’m not either.’

‘Sherlock?’ John’s use of the name was normally a warning, or a statement. Not usually a question, but there was a question hanging behind Sherlock’s own lips and John didn’t think he was ready to ask it.

‘I missed you.’

‘I was unconscious, not on holiday.’

 ‘Irrelevant, apparently.’

‘You didn’t notice when I went to  _Dublin_ for a  _weekend_!’

Sherlock turned and raised an eyebrow. Of course Sherlock would think that situation was entirely different to the one they found themselves standing in. John tutted.

Was this how they spoke? How they talked? They were  _shit_  at talking, like most men of their age were, but for some reason they were even worse and although they weren’t shagging and didn’t want to be they communicated more with connected tongues and mouths than they could with sentences. Actions speak louder than words, was that the saying? Well, in that case, John had shot a man and Sherlock had killed himself, so they had virtually been throwing themselves at each other ever since they first met.

There was something different, though, in the closeness. The intimacy. Something—darker? Warmer? John’s father would have said it was like a good Scotch, but then again he’d have said that anything and everything that was even a little bit nice was like a good Scotch. Sherlock was  _better_  than a good Scotch, although perhaps not unlike one. Definitely similar in the sense of being an acquired taste. 

Learning Sherlock was like learning a language; you never really became fluent, not like you could with your mother tongue. But John knew enough, enough haphazard idioms and anecdotes and looks, to know what Sherlock was trying to say. 

What he meant was that he would have missed him, and that he’d missed him before. 

God, they had an odd manner of affection.

It made no bloody sense, and he hadn’t even been fucking  _conscious_ , but John eventually smiled at Sherlock and said, ‘I missed you, too.’

* 

Sherlock spotted Harry Watson while he was off finding a packet of Quavers and something warm and wet masquerading as tea.

He’d only seen her out of the corner of his eye when he recognised her. He’d never met the woman in person, and it wasn’t as if John had plastered up pictures of his sister and himself, but Sherlock could tell it was her. After all, when had he ever had to meet anyone to know everything he needed to know about them? 

The detective slotted a tarnished pound coin into the vending machine he was standing next to, and punched in the appropriate code. As the machine whirred into life, Sherlock turned back to the reception at the end of the hallway. 

Harry had approached the front desk and laid a hand on the dull material of its surface. She was blonde—blonder than John, but Sherlock had never really been able to describe John as  _blond_. Beige, maybe, but not blond. Her hair was shoulder-length and messy: unbrushed and unintentional, but almost certainly freshly washed. She was taller than John, too, even without the slight heel on her chelsea boots. A cruel reversal of the roles there, Sherlock reckoned, and he wondered whether or not that had some unconscious influence on John’s attitude towards his sister. It could have definitely been a possibility…

She turned around then, glancing down the hall with a searching expression that betrayed the reason she was there. No one in that waiting room would guess that she was there for a routine appointment. Sherlock noticed even more—she wore minimal makeup, her mascara was smudged black around her eyes. Cheap, then, probably, and bought out of a misplaced sense of duty… but the smudges weren’t a result of the dampening of her eyes. She hadn’t been crying, and she hadn’t been home. Her black leather jacket was well-loved, the biker silhouette interrupted by the grey-worn elbows and perfectly moulded shoulders. It was obvious a dependable partner for her nights out, a loyal companion through all sorts—she’d been out on a routine night, then, when they’d rung her up to tell her that her brother had been shot. Her jeans bore another half of her story; there were smudges and streaks of mud where Harry hadn’t cleaned them thoroughly enough. She’d fallen down many a time. What was more likely, however, was that she’d half fallen several times while someone else held her up.

There was an outline of a mobile in her back pocket, as well, a cheaper model than the one she’d given John. But she carried a nondescript leather bag in the crook of her arm. She’d just been on the phone and hastily hung up as she entered the building, most likely to their parents. ( _Great_.) 

Harry pushed her weight away from the counter then, and turned to walk down the hall towards Sherlock. She shot a grateful glance at the receptionist who had pointed her in the right direction, but there was a fragility in her face which was not yet mended. Sherlock could see her flex her free hand, and the movement failed to hide the mild tremor that intermittently coursed through the muscles—she needed a stiff drink. 

There was something, however, in the set of her jaw that almost ( _almost_ ) surprised Sherlock, although he should have known. She was John’s sister, after all.

She didn’t  _want_  to want one.

The garish yellow packet of crisps dropped into the tray at the base of the machine just as she swept past him, her long strides eating up the distance between the public areas and John’s hospital room. Harry didn’t recognise Sherlock, even though she should have done; there was no chance that John hadn’t spoken to her about him. She probably read all the newspapers… before promptly throwing them in the bin. Then again, he had been bent down and plucking a rather desperate snack from an automated machine. Not exactly his idea of optimum circumstances. There wasn’t even any bloody tea around, just coffee that seemed more like sludge than a comforting hot drink. And  _bloody_ Mycroft had taken his coat…

Sherlock was still scowling about Mycroft’s presumption when he walked back to John’s room. Harry had arrived there before he did, though only by an estimated twenty-four seconds, and was peering through the window in the door when he sidled up beside her.

‘He’s asleep,’ he said, ignoring what was most likely an unneeded introduction. ‘Quavers?’

She looked at him like he was completely bonkers. 

Then again, he probably was.

* 

‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’

‘Likewise.’

Oh,  _God._  Harry had arrived, and the first person she spoke to just had to be Sherlock? John was momentarily convinced that he had the worst luck in the world—then he promptly remembered the bullet.

Maybe not the  _worst_  luck in the world.

John was still unsuccessfully disentangling himself from the sheets when Harry and Sherlock came in, looking like the most opposite pair of anything that ever existed. Did they look like that? Probably not. They fit together in a way that Harry didn’t, with a quiet presumption that she’d never quite got the hang of.

‘Hello, Johnny boy!’

John cringed. She only called him that because he hated it. They’d never really progressed past being fourteen when it came to each other. Sherlock cocked his brow at the nickname as he retook his seat in what was quickly becoming his chair, and John glared at him from where his sister had pinned him down in an awkward hug.

‘Shut it, you,’ he said, the words muffled against Harry’s shoulder. John wasn’t sure exactly who he’d meant them for, really. Either would do.

When Harry did release him and pulled a chair to the side of his bed, John resigned himself to the situation. ‘Hiya, Harry,’ he said, meeting her expectant gaze. 

She grinned, mischievous as ever. ‘Don’t you mean, ‘ _Wotcher,_  Harry’?’

All her mates greeted her like that. Some odd in-koke, a byproduct of a craze John had missed out but she’d grasped with arms outstretched. He rolled his eyes, and said, ‘Hiya, Harry,’ again, drawing out the syllables.

‘Spoilsport,’ Harry muttered as she leant forward to prop her bag against the leg of her chair.

‘I think I’m entitled.’

Harry froze as she folded her hands in her lap. She recovered quickly, however, and pulled at the hem of her jacket. ‘Ah. Yes,’ she said, pausing until the two ends of the zip aligned in her fingers. ‘Well, how is that?’

‘Mustn’t grumble.’

‘Do I detect a degree of sarcasm?’

John snorted and cocked his head towards Sherlock, who had settled into both his seat and the packet of crisps. ‘It’ll go off the charts when he opens his mouth.' 

Harry gave her brother a knowing smile before turning to catch Sherlock’s eye. ‘Why am I not surprised you two get on?’

Sherlock shrugged overenthusiastically as he crumpled up the crisp packet and chucked it in the direction of the bin. John was relieved that the rubbish made it in; he wasn’t about to clean up after Sherlock, not with an IV in his hand and industrial-looking sutures in his side. ‘Who says we do?

‘Everyone—like a house on fire, in fact.’ The smile widened, Harry’s pointed canines giving the impish glint in her eye a feral intensity. John had been on the receiving end of that look too many times to count, and he’d never liked it. Sherlock just looked mildly amused.

‘I assure you, our flat is still standing. We’ll give arson a go, though, I’m sure.’

‘ _I’m_  sure you’ll end up burning us all to a crisp eventually,’ John said, intervening in the conversation that could easily devolve into throwing infuriatingly polite insults. He turned to Sherlock and shook his head; why did he end up with all the nutters? ‘Can you not be an arse for two seconds?’

‘I’ve tried,’ said Sherlock as he leafed through the reading material they’d amassed from the shop on the ground floor. ‘It’s not worth it.’

John ignored Harry’s sniggers. ‘What does it take for you to be nice to people?’

‘A lobotomy, maybe?’ came Harry’s reply, accompanied by a chuckle that wasn’t meant exclusively for either of them.

Oh, she could give as good as she got. It was nice, to have it shoved on someone else for a change. Still, John was tempted to frown—just because it was Harry—but there was such a degree of truth to her joking suggestion that he smiled, and laid a prompting hand on Sherlock’s shoulder.

‘Pop back to the flat and shove a change of clothes into a bag for me. Hopefully they’ll pack this in and send us home before long.’ When Sherlock fixed him with a stare that suggested he wouldn’t be moved, John gave his arm a push that was more akin to a nudge.  ‘Go on.’

It took less bargaining than John had expected to make Sherlock shift out of the chair. Still, he hadn’t changed out of what was left of his suit since the night before either, so he wasn’t being entirely selfless. That really would have been a miracle.

John mused aloud as Harry watched Sherlock’s silhouette disappear down the corridor. ‘I wonder if I could stump him for a few days by bringing up Schrodinger’s cat.’ 

‘It’d never work. From what you’ve told me, he’d either get a cat and try it out, or call the entire thing moronic,’ she said, smiling through the Geordie lilt she’d picked up from Clara.

John groaned. ‘Or both. Knowing him, he’d do both. Kill the cat first, ask questions later.’

Harry laughed, the sound reverberating in the quiet room as they sat in silence. She waited a beat, glancing down at her fingers and picking at a cuticle, before speaking. ‘I rung Mum and Dad.’ 

‘Decent of you.’

She shrugged, and leant over to fish around in her bag. ‘They’d want to know.’

‘There’s not much to know, is there? I was shot, I’m all right. It’s not exactly new to us, is it?’

‘You’re a civilian living in central London.’ Her voice was disembodied, a sound floating up from somewhere south of the furniture, yet it didn’t lose any of its long-suffering disbelief.

John just shrugged against his pillow as Harry reappeared, running a hand through her blonde hair as she unlocked her phone. 

‘No, I suppose not,’ she replied, and they fell into an uncomfortable silence as she poked around with the device. ‘So what am I to tell them you’ve been doing?’

‘Police work.’

‘That Briggs girl?’ 

John tried to hum in agreement but his throat failed him.

There was a pause then, as Harry’s fingers flew across the miniature keyboard, eventually landing on a button that John recognized as  _send_. How she’d managed to rope their parents into texting, John had no idea. ‘They’ll be pleased.’

‘Mmhm.’

John watched her in silence as she shifted to push her phone into her front pocket, and eventually she settled with her chin cradled in her hand, fingers curled over his mouth. Her nail beds were tinged red where she’d daubed on varnish and immediately regretted it. Her slim fingers always played over her lips when she was dying for a cigarette; soon enough, they flitted to her jacket pocket, tracing a faint rectangular outline. She never kept them in her handbag if she had somewhere closer.

‘You’re mental,’ she said after a moment’s silence, the hand still fidgeting with the pocket’s zip.

‘You’ve said.’

‘He is, too.’

John didn’t need the significant nod that she gave the empty chair that loomed ominously on the other side of his bed. 

‘I am aware.’ 

That seemed to be enough to tell Harry what she needed to know. She didn’t push it, either, not for words or definitions or explanations. Perhaps she knew he had none; perhaps she lived with that herself. John didn’t know. They didn’t talk about it. No one in their family ever did. 

Harry patted him on the arm. ‘Mind if I pop out for a smoke?’

Ah, there it was. The inevitable question. As a doctor, John really should have said that yes, he did mind. As her brother, he should have said yes. As a man who’d be expected to share a room with the lingering smell of cigarettes and an ever-antsy Sherlock, he should have said yes.

John just shook his head.

*

Harry was still sat at his bedside when Mrs Hudson arrived even later in the evening, saying something about Sherlock’s sour expression when he’d barged past her on the stairs up to the flat.

‘Not had another domestic, have we?’ she said, maneuvering her way through the doorway with a nondescript paper bag in her arms.

John opened his mouth to respond with something vaguely satisfying—he was pretty sure they’d  _not_ , after all, he’d only asked Sherlock to do him a favour but God knows who had last asked Sherlock frigging Holmes to do them a bloody  _favour_ —but Harry beat him to it.

(Bloody typical, that was.)

‘I daresay he’s had a bit of a shock.’

Mrs Hudson barely missed a step. ‘Oh, hello, dear,’ she said, pushing the door shut behind her with a kick of a foot. ‘You must be Harriet.’

‘It’s Harry, if you don’t mind.’

‘Course I don’t, dear! It’s nothing compared to what those two ask of me…’ she replied with a wide smile. She placed the bag on the end of John’s bed, and unrolled the top with an unselfconcious crackling. She reached in with a hand and it reappeared brandishing a flask. ‘Now, what can I offer you? Sandwiches, tea, a biscuit?’

‘Only the occasional ice chip for me,’ said John.

‘Oh!’ Mrs Hudson’s gaze was soft and apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, dear—’

He stopped her in her tracks with a vague wave of his arm. He didn’t mind. He was alive, wasn’t he? Plenty more time for tea when he could keep it down.

Harry had never been one to reject a hot cup of tea when it was offered to her, though, and before long the two women had managed to tuck into a rather nice late tea. It turned out that Harry and Mrs Hudson got on better than John could ever have expected. Then again, Mrs Hudson had once hired Sherlock to make sure her husband was  _executed_ , so she wasn’t just a kindly landlady who had happened to take a shine to them. The more he thought about it, John was less and less skeptical of the idea that Mrs Hudson’s youth was like Harry’s. Well, not the going out with girls bit, obviously, but still. The rest. Quote-on-quote herbal soothers, and all. 

Before long, however, Harry was obviously itching to go. John had gone to too many school dos and family affairs to not notice when she was liable just to get up and flounce off. It wasn’t always for a drink; no, well before that took hold she’d flounced off for cigarettes, or any one of her recent flings, or even just to dangle her feet in the pond in their back garden and feel the crisp night air on her face. Sometimes John had even flounced off with her.

He couldn’t do that, though. Not with his side in the state it was—though a pint might have made the pain a little gentler.

In any case, John was on forty-seven of his countdown when Harry laid a hand heavily on her knee and took a deep breath. ‘Well, I’d best be off. You don’t want me hanging around anyway, do you, John?’

John tried to smile at her. He couldn’t very well deny that he found spending large amounts with her trying. She was lovely, really, a wonderful person. In short doses. She knew exactly what he was thinking, of course; he was too boring for her, too quiet. (If only she knew.) 

And he could do with a good nap.

‘I’ll stay on in London for a while. People to see, you know. I’ll pop in to see you before I go back up, here or…’ She trailed off, unsure exactly where John lived. She’d never really been bothered about stopping by before, after all.

‘221B, dear. Baker Street,’ supplied Mrs Hudson as she took the plastic mug from Harry’s outstretched hand. ‘I’ll let you in if the boys are being hardheaded.’

John huffed in indignation. ‘It’s hardly ever  _me_.’

The older woman laughed, and patted his calf. ‘No, but you two are a bit of a package deal now, aren’t you?’

Harry didn’t give him any time to be embarrassed. ‘What, a two-for-one offer?’

John grumbled his assent as Harry chuckled. Her laugh had always reminded him of an early morning crash on the motorway—loud, depressing, and full of promise that you were going to spill your coffee.

‘I’ll be back, John,’ she said, hoisting her bag onto her shoulder and half-zipping that leather jacket she’d worn since she was twenty-one. He didn’t miss the slight shaking of her hand, the tapping against the thick seam of her jeans. She was due a trip to the pub. In a funny old way, John couldn’t blame her as much as he usually did.

‘Thanks for the warning.’

‘Cheeky sod,’ she said, laughing as she laid a hand on the door handle. 

John couldn’t resist. ‘Pot, kettle, black.’ 

* 

Apparently, Molly had stopped by.

John wouldn’t have known; he’d been asleep.

He was surprised when Sherlock told him, though. He hadn’t realised Molly worked  _quite_  so late. The cheap tabloid she’d left for him did incite a bit of a smile, though. In ordinary circumstances he’d have probably found the entire thing insensitive and annoying, but the morphine was always an interesting addition to his bloodstream and Sherlock’s stern expression was amusing enough.

_A PRICKLY BEDSIDE MANNER?  
_ _Sherlock Holmes accompanies colleague and  
_ _flatmate John Watson to hospital after shooting_

The picture was blurry—or that might have been John’s vision, either was likely—but it was definitely Sherlock, pointedly ignoring the journalist shouting in his direction as he stalked back into the hospital, an overnight bag in one hand. John could just imagine the implication.

‘Don’t miss a story, that lot,’ John said, yawning despite the soreness of his jaw.

‘They only got one thing right,’ Sherlock said.

‘What?’ John almost couldn’t believe his ears. Sherlock Holmes, admitting someone else could have got something right?

Sherlock held out the paper to John, jabbing a finger at the image that was half-covered with an all-caps, bolded headline. ‘No ear hat.’

John shook his head, and turned back to his pillow. ‘You’re an idiot.’

Sherlock’s ensuing laugh was laced with subdued affection.

*

From one heartbeat to the next, John went from contentedly dozing to staring at the dimly lit ceiling.

 _Damn_.

He’d never been one for sleeping through the night. He could, and did more often when he was working with Sherlock and they finished a case just in time for bed, but his natural sleep state was nothing like Sherlock’s. That bloke could sleep through an explosion; he’d probably wake up in the rubble, step over the side of 221C’s kitchen, and complain that the blast damaged his incubating samples. John would have woken at the first inkling of a rumble, possibly even the striking of a match or the faint click of a button.

It was worse now, though. He could get to sleep easily enough, and whatever morphine derivative they were giving him was a brilliant helping hand, but it wasn’t much cop when he woke suddenly. All the sleep he’d had during the day probably didn’t help, either. If he was at home, he’d just shuffle about a bit, maybe reach to drink from a bottle of water by his side of the bed and shove a foot inbetween Sherlock’s, and ruffle his pillow until that one lump that never broke up shifted. There was no chance of him doing that in a hospital bed; it was different from barracks, in that way. At least a bed in a camp in a war zone was  _his_. 

John grunted as he turned a fraction, rotating his hips until he found a position that didn’t aggravate the wound. There weren’t many to choose from, and what didn’t aggravate wasn’t necessarily comfortable. It was just his bloody luck that he’d end up getting shot so he couldn’t lie as he liked. The last time that had happened, he’d just had to learn to sleep on his other shoulder. 

As he was shuffling around, still not quite comfortable and rapidly losing hope that he ever would be, John noticed the reach of Sherlock’s elongated legs. The other man had excused himself some time before John had come to the conclusion that there really wasn’t anything better to do than sleep for the night; he must have crept back in at some point. Probably crawled through the vents and soundlessly dropped into his chair, knowing his flair for the dramatic. Batting his eyelashes at the nurses station would have been just has effective, but  _boring_. 

Now his coltish body was taking up a surprisingly large amount of space in the empty side of the room, and although he would have immediately appeared comfortable to anyone who wasn’t John, there was something about the rigidity and stiffness about his limbs that wasn’t right—the tension of consciousness. He wasn’t asleep, then. But John had seen Sherlock relaxed and awake, and he could be about as floppy as a Great Dane pup learning to use its legs.

Thinking, then. Could be a good thing. 

Probably wasn’t. 

John rested his hand on the edge of his bed, and peered into the foggy darkness. ‘Sherlock?’

There was no reply. Sherlock must have heard him; John was being quiet for the sake of his fellow patients, but there was no way that his hushed speech could have been called a true whisper. The harshness of his throat made that impossible. Still, there was no discernible change—in either direction. He didn’t even flinch. He’d probably noticed that John was awake, so no real surprise there. There was no change in his figure, either, no obnoxious false snores or stillness. John watched him through narrowed eyes, and after a moment there was a forced relaxing of the muscles that communicated his consciousness. 

‘I know you’re awake, you twit,’ John said, as he pulled the cover over his shoulder and settled his head onto the too-hard pillow.

No change. But it didn’t matter what John knew, did it?

John closed his eyes, their warm darkness not that different than the night he’d been looking through. He faced where Sherlock sat, and although he couldn’t  _see_  him, once or twice John thought he could just about make out his silhouette through his eyelid.

He might as well try and get some sleep and keep an eye on Sherlock at the same time, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a revised version of Chapter 11, posted on 10 July 2013. The original was posted on 7 July 2013 but later temporarily removed in order to correct some inaccuracies pointed out by readers. In the intervening time, I reviewed readers' comments, contacted an individual with experience in a trauma hospital, and rang up several relatives who have experienced open abdominal surgery. Having taken all these reports into account, this revised version should present a more realistic portrait of events. I'd like to thank my readers for being so eagle-eyed and for pointing out the problems, and I hope you'll continue to read and enjoy the fic!


	12. Chapter 12

Sherlock wasn’t much better when Mrs Hudson brought him a spot of breakfast. His pinched expression only made John and their landlady exchange equally quizzical glances. Even ham and cheese sandwiches couldn’t tempt him, and they sat in John’s hospital room listening to the squeaks of wheelchairs passing the door and the incessant coughing of the patient next door. Once or twice John thought that he just might be able to hear Sherlock thinking, for although his body was still his mind was undoubtably whirring, but each time that was just his side playing tricks on him. Or maybe it wasn’t; Sherlock’s silence ached almost as much as the wound did, except there wasn’t a painkiller for that. 

It was when Sherlock didn’t move a muscle to say goodbye to Mrs Hudson that John decided enough was enough. The man got away with a lot, even with her, but there was a line he didn’t usually cross and he’d just sprinted straight over it.

When Mrs Hudson closed the door behind her and the clicking of her shoes was replaced by the squeaking of the nurses’ rubber soles, John turned to where Sherlock had folded his oversized self into a rickety hospital chair.

‘Sherlock, what’s the matter with you?’

The detective ended his staring contest with the pain chart on the opposite wall to fix John with a look that said he should knew exactly what was going on. As if anything was straightforward when it came to Sherlock.

‘Fine,’ John said, fixing Sherlock with a reproachful look of his own. ‘You’re thinking. You’re always thinking, and you’re doing that look again, so I daresay you’ve reached some sort of conclusion.’

‘What face?’

‘You know, the face. The one that says you’ve reached a decision that you’re convinced should be painfully obvious to the rest of us, even though you’ve been pondering it for hours,’ John said automatically, not bothering to feel overjoyed at Sherlock responding to him. He just watched as Sherlock’s face remained unchanged save for a slight narrowing of his eyes. ‘That’s the one.’

‘Oh,’ said Sherlock, although John was not convinced that he realised what he was on about at all.

‘So, what’s the conclusion?’

‘What?’

‘The conclusion. The decision. Whatever it is that appears to have rendered you speechless.’

Sherlock exhaled heavily through his nose, and propped his chin on steepled hands as he turned away from John’s raised eyebrows. ‘Inevitability.’

John barked out an atrophied laugh. ‘It’s not like you to be vague.’

Except it was—Sherlock babbled on about whatever he wanted to in whatever manner he wanted, in as much detail as he wanted. He took pleasure in being intentionally vague when it suited him, but this Sherlock wasn’t the same. The slope of his shoulders was slanted where it should have been straight; the set of his jaw was too tight for him to be the relaxed man he was trying to appear to be. John watched him, just watched as Sherlock watched the floor. What was he supposed to do? You couldn’t make Sherlock say anything he didn’t want to. The man could sit there, silent, for days. Pestering wouldn’t do any good—not that John was a man taken to pestering. So he waited—and God only knew he had enough experience to be good at it.

It was only when Sherlock managed to make as much of a racket as he usually did by only exhaling at irregular intervals that John decided Sherlock somehow—somewhere, in that inexplicable brain of his—wanted him to ask. Or, well, say something.

‘Stop sighing,’ John scolded, with little bite to back it up. ‘You sound as if you’re deflating.’

Sherlock said nothing. 

‘What, no comment about me comparing you to a blow-up doll? You’re losing your edge, Sherlock.’ 

John tried hard to keep the smile that was lingering beneath the surface out of his words. He didn’t even know why it was there, but it was and he didn’t want it. As Sherlock sat there, saying nothing, John gripped the cold metal of the bed rails until his knuckles were white. He didn’t know why. It was the only thing he could have done, and it was—essentially—nothing.

When Sherlock finally did speak, it felt like the prick of a needle. ‘Five years.’ 

‘What?’

‘I give you five years.’

‘Until I drop dead?’

John couldn’t believe he was still making jokes, even if they were of a darker variety. The look on Sherlock’s face when he turned to meet John’s gaze revealed that he couldn’t believe it either.

‘You’re going to leave,’ he said, leaning one elbow on the stiff arm of the chair that separated him from the rest of the room. He sounded resigned, not upset or crestfallen. Just resigned. ‘One day. Maybe not soon, but you will.’

‘That’s bollocks, and you know it.’

Sherlock shrugged. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Fucking hell, Sherlock!’

‘Don’t ignore the inevitable problem, John. It’s the human element, the one I usually try and avoid.’

John turned back to Sherlock, the fingers on one of his hands pulling at his hospital wristband as his brow fought against his attempts not to frown. His musculature won, and when he met Sherlock’s gaze he’d passed the point of feeling guilty for not curbing his acerbic words.

‘Yeah, and you even managed to avoid me for a while, didn’t you?’

_I will burn the heart out of you._

_I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one._

_We both know that’s not quite true._

He was Sherlock’s human element. The one bit he couldn’t control, couldn’t avoid, couldn’t disentangle himself even if he tried. Except he hadn’t really tried before, not really, and now he was, and Sherlock was a man who made the world bend to his whims. He’d convinced himself of whatever ridiculous vision of the future he’d come up with, and now he was going to convince everybody else.

Sherlock met John’s quietly aggressive gaze, and answered with one that was even more impassioned. ‘We have a whole arsenal of human flaws between us.’

‘Who doesn’t, Sherlock?’

‘We _know_ we have them.’

‘And that makes it worse?’ 

John couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing most of the time with Sherlock (‘ _No, we’re out of milk, I used the last half-pint to clean these teeth_ ,’ or ‘ _I haven’t got out of bed in three days because it’s an experiment_ ,’) but there was nothing that suggested Sherlock could have ended up with the wrong end of the stick. John knew what he was like when he invited him into his bed, he knew what he was like when he kissed him and he knew what he was like even when he was shouting at him and accidentally let it slip that he loved him. Sherlock knew he was just as maladjusted as he was, in different ways. They knew. They knew, so they could _prevent_ ; isn’t that what most people wanted? No, Sherlock took it to mean that he knew so he could come up with all possible results and conclude that the majority of them were failures.

‘You fucked up, Sherlock,’ John said, thrusting himself back onto his pillows with an effort that sent waves of pain over his side. He ignored it in favour of throwing a hand in Sherlock’s direction, and continuing through gritted teeth. ‘But we can live with that.’

‘You’re straight,’ Sherlock said, speaking as if he was just reading off a list of their problems. 

(Had he got one? Probably. John wouldn’t have put it past him. Unhealthy. Was it? He didn’t know. He didn’t care.)

John scowled at him. ‘Who put you in charge of my sexuality?’

‘You’re sexual,’ continued Sherlock. Item two, check. 

John shrugged. ‘It’s not a requirement for the continuation of life.’

‘You wanted to get off with Sarah the first night you went out with her.’

‘And then she and all the other women got fed up and buggered off because you always came first,’ John said. Surely Sherlock had realised that. He hadn’t been the only one chasing them off.

‘You kept on dating women,’ Sherlock said, his anecdotal evidence colouring the slivers of emotion in his voice.

John shook his head. He wanted to reach out to Sherlock, to lay a hand on his shoulder or forearm but there was always the chance that he’d flinch away. It was looking likely, and John didn’t think he’d manage to get through to the end of the argument if that happened halfway through.

Instead, he just sighed, and rubbed at his brow with a thumb and forefinger. ‘Then isn’t now.’ 

Sherlock snorted dismissively. ‘It’s all the same state of being.’ 

‘Sherlock, do you really believe that no one can change?’

‘Not entirely.’

‘Your belief or—’

Sherlock interrupted him with a sneer. ‘People. People don’t just turn into other people. Change is an illusion.’

‘Have you ever heard of emotional development?’

Nothing.

‘Character sodding development, for lack of a better term?’

Still, _nothing_.

‘Anyway, you can talk,’ John continued, looking intently at an errant curl that lay over the top of Sherlock’s ear. It was easier than trying to meet his elusive gaze. ‘You said you were married to your work and now you share my bed.’ 

John could see Sherlock swallowing hard, trying to control something that he had no experience taming.

The detective almost managed to do it, _almost_ , but instead he closed his eyes and spat out the words that had evidently been bothering him. ‘Everybody lies, everybody cheats, everybody uses and _everybody_ leaves—’ 

‘Fuck you, Sherlock,’ John snapped, and Sherlock froze with eyes fixed on John’s and a slightly opened mouth. John took a breath, and took the clipped tone out of his voice the best he could before continuing. ‘You don’t know what’s in my head.’ 

The way his voice trailed off, getting quieter as he neared the end of his thought, made Sherlock turn away. Maybe it was too intimate for him, too close to emotional baggage for him to stay any nearer. He’d been closer, he’d been closer than that for years before they started up anything more, but now it seemed more important, more private. Neither of them really knew what they were doing, did they?

‘Sherlock,’ John started, keeping his voice even as to get his point across with no misconstrued meaning. ‘I’m not a randy teenager anymore. If you think I’m about to walk away because I can’t get my leg over than you’ve got a funny idea about our relationship.’

No response was forthcoming, and John fought the impulse to throw the closest thing at hand towards the opposite wall. Instead, he kicked one of the newspapers that Mrs Hudson had left near his feet up to within arm’s reach, and shook one open.

‘If anything should have sent me running,’ John muttered, glancing quickly from one blurry headline to another, ‘it was the severed head.’

Just as John had finished muttering to himself, the door opened and one of the nurses that he’d seen walking down the hallway when Mrs Hudson had arrived entered. He hoped that she hadn’t heard enough of his words to question them. He really didn’t want to have to explain—or admit—that they had, at one point, had a head in their fridge. It was difficult enough to explain to Sherlock why he shouldn’t have kept it next to the veg. Though, John had wondered once or twice whether or not the entire thing had been an elaborate plan to get him to chuck out their entire stock of Brussels sprouts.

The nurse, however, knew nothing about either the head or the suspected plot, and she shot Sherlock a bewildered glance as she shut the door behind her.

John spoke before she had a chance to formulate a question. He nodded in Sherlock’s direction from behind the paper. ‘This is my partner.’

She looked confused. She should have been, with the look that Sherlock shot him out of the corner of his eye. ‘Partner?’

‘Partner in crime, usually,’ John said in the middle of a dismissive sigh that ended the discussion.

She frowned at first but ended up shrugging; it wasn’t as if the situation wasn’t one that was being mirrored in a thousand rooms the world over. Perhaps not exactly like Sherlock and John were, but the basic similarities would have been there, and that was enough for most people. John couldn’t fully get his head around Sherlock, then no one could, not even a medical professional. So the nurse disregarded the fact that she had just waltzed in to a tense situation, and continued with her duties. John helped her when he could, offering facts he knew she had to ask for, and Sherlock ignored them both.

She ended up peering, eye narrowed, at the reading of the monitor, and noted the glowing numbers on his chart. John didn’t need a machine and an armband to tell him his blood pressure was peaking; he could still feel the anger pulsating through his veins. It didn’t help that Sherlock had looked at him around the nurse’s shoulder with a face so expressionless that John was sure he must have learnt it from Mycroft. He’d never felt such a strong desire to clock him one. 

Sherlock had got his phone out when John was pointedly not looking at him, and the small clicks that accompanied his fast typing became as much as part of the background of the room as the beeping and whirring of monitors had. It was a sound that John would have found familiar, a sound that should have been closer to his ear as Sherlock’s unruly elbows accidentally poked him in the forehead when he was texting Lestrade at two in the morning. It wasn’t. It was anything but, then.

As the nurse tucked a pen into her pocket and turned to leave the room, her gaze fell on Sherlock. She smiled briefly, one of those smiles that promised a reprimand, and said, ‘No mobiles, sir.’

Sherlock made a great show of placing the phone back in his jacket pocket, and for once, his theatrics made John irritable with absolutely no twinge of their usual amusement.

* 

Sherlock had felt at home in silence, at one point in his life. He still did, most of the time. He wasn’t then, after the door clicked shut behind the nurse and nothing happened.

John wasn’t reading the newspaper that he was holding in front of him. His eyes weren’t moving. His hands were moving the pages at the appropriate times, and occasionally he’d look at a headline or a picture but stare too long to be taking it in, but he wasn’t reading. Why bother, then? It was an unnecessary effort. Effort out of anger? Adrenaline? Distraction? Thought? That was it, thought. John was _thinking_. About what? Him? Them? Both. What had just happened. What they’d just said. Words, all of it. Evasion. Truth was in there, somewhere, but what was truth, objectively? John was processing what Sherlock had said to him. All of it, the objective truth and the subjective and the speculation. Could he tell them apart?

If anyone could, it would have been John. 

John did that every time. Felt, then thought. Same as pulling a trigger and then wondering why. Same as loving him and wondering why he’d fallen in love in the first place. Had he even done that? He said he had. Was that enough? People lied. He’d lied to John before. Had John lied to him? About anything that was important? Only Irene, he knew about that but he also knew about Mycroft and John… John had done what he thought was best, so that was different. Should have been different. But was it? Really? It must have been.

_I fucking loved you, Sherlock. Does that mean anything to you?_

_It does mean something_.

It had, then. Meant something. Now it meant almost everything and that wasn’t supposed to have happened. But it had—why? _Why_ had it happened? 

‘Sherlock.’

He snapped his head up to look at John. He’d discarded the newspaper, and it lay flat and crumpled across his thighs. The frown was gone, too, the one that wrinkled his forehead in anger replaced by a slight furrowing, a divot between his eyebrows. A questioning glance, one that didn’t beg for an answer. Sherlock didn’t offer one.

‘Come here.’

Sherlock was out of the chair against his own will; why his body kept doing that he had no idea. He felt out of place, out of sorts. Still, John beckoned him with an outstretched hand, and he walked towards it, like John wanted him to. He had nothing better to do, after all. Or was it that this _was_ the best thing he could be doing? He’d never sat at someone’s bedside, he’d always been in the bed before, how was he supposed to know what the protocol was? He’d figure it out, and ignore it. He always did. Protocol was boring, but for some reason, sitting there with John was not when all previous data would suggest it should have been.

He came to a stop when John lowered his hand. No point in continuing to close the last three inches when the command that had brought him there ceased to exist. Sherlock stood there, still apart from his fingers tapping something that might have been Vaughn Williams at one point in its life onto the side of his leg. Meaningless tune, meaningless notes. Or were they? Was anything meaningless? Was everything?

John reached out and took his hand, fingers encircling his own as one wandered upwards and slotted itself under the buttoned cuff of his shirt. That sleeve was hiding the four nicotine patches on his forearm—there hadn’t been a four-patch problem, before. In any case, John’s fingertip got nowhere near; they stilled at the leather strap of his watch. Sherlock could feel his own pulse throbbing against John’s finger. So small, so insignificant, yet it felt like everything, _everything_ , if it meant that he’d get to go home and let John shout at him for the patches. For everything he’d done. For anything he would do.

John was looking at him. Watching him. Trying to figure him out; he could try as much as he could, but it wasn’t going to work. Not really. He got closest, though. It was always him who got closest—was closest.

‘It’s not really about that, is it, Sherlock?’ John asked, voice careful and steady. He was getting there; slowly, but getting there. He wasn’t an idiot. Not as much as the others. He continued, more confident as the information slotted into place.  John’s voice; _John_. ‘Sex is only part of it. What’s the rest?’

No. It wasn’t about sex. That was just symptomatic of the rest of it, the rest of the low turning of his stomach that, occasionally, made him feel a bit sick. All right, quite sick. Dry retching sick, once. Sex was just one part, the one part that was easy and subjective to put into words. You enjoy sex, I’m not that bothered, can you see where this is going? That was easier than the rest of the grey area they lounged in, the hatched square where no one was supposed to stop but they had. Uncharted territory. No maps, no templates, no _supposed-to_ s or _should-do_ s.

No. It wasn’t sex. It never had been. It was the absence, the possibility that he’d wake up one day and John would have had enough, packed it in, found something better, something more suited, more expected, and that would be it. The thought… the very idea of that thought inspired fright in his usually unflappable mind.

 _On the count of three, shoot Dr Watson_. 

He’d never been frightened for anyone before. Had he ever been frightened before John? Probably. Deleted it, then. Being frightened was not useful. It was clutter, distraction. John—John made him feel fear again. When he’d disappeared from the flat, _deadman_. When he’d been a walking bomb, strapped into a parka and Semtex. When he’d been pushed to his knees by a moronic American. When there’d been a hitman with orders and a gun pointed at the back of John’s head. When he’d crumpled, slumped to the floor and fallen backwards. When he’d taken his hand.

It was too much, too much, too much that was new and everything that was nothing all the once. When had what should have been nothing become everything? When, exactly, had John become everything? When had fear become more than a chemical response and turned into something palpable, visceral, something he could taste and smell and feel long after the threat had gone? It was illogical, it defied biology, it was idiotic and mundane and so damn predictable but it was there. High in his throat and low in his stomach, it was there. It was there when John squeezed his hand, the pressure on Sherlock’s joints almost separate from consciousness. 

‘You’re thinking again,’ John said, stroking the inside of Sherlock’s wrist. ‘Got to stop doing that when you don’t have to, you know. A holiday from thought would do you more good than you’d think.’

John. John was wrong. That wouldn’t work, he’d just get worse and worse and worse until something broke and there was never any guarantee he’d end up with a gun in his hand instead of a syringe. Which was worse? John would have an answer for that. Sherlock didn’t. There was no better or worse in that moment. There was nothing— _nothing_ , just like what would be left if John went. Pain. Pain would be there. He could deal with pain, he could manage it and self-medicate and temper the side-effects. He could recover enough, just enough, to work. Maybe. Probably. Hopefully. Would he have to? Maybe not. Probably not. Hopefully not. 

Sherlock waited until John’s eyes had left his face. It was easier that way.

‘I need you.’ 

And he did. He did need John, he needed him when he thought that he didn’t need anyone. Fright welled up in him again, out of some unseen reservoir that he’d managed to blockade until that moment, until _them_.

John kissed his wrist, the outside of is, where the cuff of his shirt met the tendons if his hand. It mirrored where his finger remained, steadfast, on the inner side. A continuation. A completion.

‘You do say some shite sometimes, Sherlock.’ John’s turned away from him, looking back at the paper and folding it in half with one hand. He hadn’t let go. It felt like he wouldn’t. When he got the page where he wants it—something about the economy, _boring_ —he turned to face Sherlock. His face. Always the same, always different. Always John. Always a conundrum, an illogicality that shouldn’t be true but it was and it was brilliant. John was brilliant. Was that fact, or opinion? He could prove it. Sherlock could prove it.

John pushed on even though Sherlock was somewhere else, somewhere in his head where only John dared to follow him. 

‘Despite your best efforts, you’re not really alone,’ he said, finding some space in his head to keep Sherlock’s extra bits and pieces. He needed a cerebral version of an overnight bag. Maybe some space in a thought-wardrobe. Maybe everything. That’s what Sherlock was like, after all. John ignored him, or John didn’t notice, or John didn’t care that he was thinking over John’s speech. Any of them were true. Could be. Probably were. Sherlock didn’t mind. He talked to John when he wasn’t there. It helped. Maybe this helped John. Maybe this helped him.

‘I know know it’ll take you a while to figure it out, and even longer to work out which words to use, but just… tell me.  Tell me, next time, Sherlock. It’ll be the only time you’ll want to be proven wrong, and I’ll manage to do it every single fucking time if that’s what it bloody well takes.’ 

Words. All of it, words. It should have meant nothing. Yet it did, it meant something and the tension in Sherlock’s stomach slid away. It shouldn’t have worked like that. He hadn’t beaten it, he hadn’t outwitted it, he hadn’t figured out what had gone wrong and fixed it. John had just… said. As easy as that, words fixed the problems words couldn’t really explain. Lies, truth, too close to tell the difference anymore. Too close to John to feel that whatever he told him was the truth, the absolute truth. There were no absolute truths, and yet, as Sherlock stood there with John’s fingers laced with his own, he could look down and stare at one. 

Intertwined. 

Silly, really.

*

Lestrade turned up to update them on the arrest a few days later, just as John was having his drain removed. The look on the detective inspector’s face as the device was pulled free was almost worth having to give his statement in a degree of discomfort. Not even corpses warranted that particular look. 

‘Trust me,’ John said as he rearranged the covers over his newly-bandaged side and Lestrade settled into the chair. ‘You got the better half of that deal.' 

‘I wouldn’t necessarily agree with you, there,’ Lestrade replied with a stiffening expression.

‘What?’ asked the nurse with a playful smile, ‘Would you have preferred to have my job?’

Lestrade gave her a look of such distress that one would have thought she’d offered to take him on her rounds. John laughed as the young woman winked at him as she exited the room. Lestrade never quite recovered from the incident, not with Sherlock’s insistence on discussing the medical necessity of drains in immense detail throughout each and every pause in John’s statement. It was a good thing that Lestrade never managed to get himself hurt too badly on the job—a bullet might not have killed them, but aftercare would. 

Sherlock smirked as Lestrade gathered his things and made to excuse himself. ‘You’re getting more and more like Morse as you age, Lestrade.’

John let out a barking laugh. ‘The moments you choose to dip into popular culture are _fascinating_ ,’ he said, fixing Sherlock with a raised eyebrow.

‘It’s my fault,’ said Lestrade, who was shrugging on his coat. ‘When we first met—when he was coming off the cocaine, I leant him my wife’s DVDs. I’m shocked he watched any of them at all, let along remembered details.’

Sherlock scoffed. ‘Predictable, the lot of it.’

‘Except you couldn’t peg that Morse didn’t like _corpses_ , not injuries.’

‘No matter.’

‘Of course,’ said Lestrade, his tone of amused acquiescence evident in the small smile he shot in John’s direction. ‘I’ll stop by later, after all this paper’s gone through. The super’s positively livid. Sends his best wishes, though.’

John shook his head and, perhaps unconsciously, flexed his fingers. ‘I’m not apologizing for punching him.’

Lestrade gave him a gentle nod, smiled, and murmured, ‘Of course,’  before backing out the room’s doorway.

Sherlock and John sat there in a comfortable silence for a moment after the click of the closing door. Before his side began throbbing too violently, John turned to the man folded in the chair by the side of his bed.

‘So,’ he said, with feigned nonchalance. ‘Let me guess. Mycroft always preferred Inspector Frost?’ 

* 

Lestrade had returned with cups of coffee and Cornish pasties when the nurse John recognized as Stella Farley joined them for their impromptu luncheon. John even considered offering her Sherlock’s untouched food, but soon thought better of it. After all, who knew where Lestrade had got them from? Well, that wasn’t really the issue. Pasties weren’t exactly recommended for wound healing, were they? Still, he’d have gone for one, if he wasn’t still being cautious with solids. 

‘It’s good news, Dr Watson,’ said Stella, shutting the door behind her before glancing at his company. ‘Oh! DI Lestrade, was it?’

‘That’d be me, m’am,’ Lestrade managed through a mouthful of pastry.

‘Ah. Right.’ She seemed ever so slightly flummoxed by the reappearance of a detective inspector who picked up a bullet wrenched from her patient’s abdomen for submission as evidence.

‘He’s a mate,’ John supplied. He knew their social life was a bit more odd than most people’s. ‘And a colleague. Bit of both, really.’

‘The more the merrier, then,’ said Stella with a smile as she flicked to the back of John’s chart and added a new page. ‘You can go home this afternoon.’

John grinned—he may have gone into hospitals as a profession, but he was finding that he was even starting to miss the agonizing wait between filling the kettle and the boil. ‘I’m being discharged?’

‘That’d be the term,’ she said as she signed his papers with a flourish. ‘You’re being released into the care of Mr Holmes.’

‘You’d best wish me good luck then. He has no idea which painkillers go with what.’

‘Honestly, John,’ came Sherlock’s disembodied reply as he turned a page of the newspaper. ‘You should keep a closer eye on my website.’ 

‘It’s true. He’s written a virtual dissertation on drug interactions,’ Lestrade said, gesturing towards Sherlock’s silhouette behind the thin paper and scattering shards of pastry.

John gaped at him, nonplussed. ‘You read his blog?’

Lestrade grinned. ‘Only when I can’t sleep’

‘Anyway, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.’

‘I am aware,’ Stella said, expertly smothering her amusement at her patient’s absurdity. ‘But we have to put _someone_ down, Dr Watson.’

John nodded, waving his hand noncommittally in the air to the left of his head, and Stella left the room with a brief nod and instructions to prepare to leave the hospital. No one said anything, not until Lestrade crumpled up the paper bag their lunch had come out of and chucked it at the bin.

‘All right then,’ John said as he pushed himself so he could sit higher against his pillows. ‘Get out, the lot of you, unless you want an eyeful of my arse.’

Lestrade didn’t move immediately, although the shuddering of his chest signaled that he was smothering laughter. He and Sherlock shared an overly meaningful look, as if indirectly egging John on. Lestrade tittered—as much as a Detective Inspector could, anyway, without losing face. 

‘Oh, piss off!’ 

Lestrade excused himself with a snigger, dragging Sherlock with him under the guise of having a look at a few cold cases. John hauled himself out of bed, although not without effort. He had to stop and catch his breath with his bare feet hanging inches from the tiled floor. He was John Hamish Watson, _Captain_ John Hamish Watson, and he’d invaded Afghanistan. No, not on his own, but Sherlock had said it and it helped. John must have helped dozens of soldiers in his state; he’d patched them up and told them the rules and helped them get on with it. Now _he_ had to get on with it.

Once on his feet, John was a bit wobbly (five days in bed would do that to a man) but stable enough to half-shuffle, half-limp towards the overnight back that Sherlock had left in his place. The zip proved to be another puzzle, only because it was a bag that Sherlock obviously hadn’t used for years and it’d seized up but once he’d breached the entrance John shoved his hand inside, fingers searching for anything familiar. He didn’t need anything in particular, just jeans and any old t-shirt would do. He probably wouldn’t be going out anytime soon; maybe he’d pinch some of Sherlock’s pyjamas when he ran out of clean ones. Maybe then Sherlock would appreciate the value of regular laundering, even when one’s wardrobe _wasn’t_ completely empty…

John frowned as his hand came into contact with a material that he did not immediately recognize. He pulled at it, curling his fingers around whatever it was and hauling it into the open, bringing the leg of a pair of jeans and some pants with it. In any case, the array of clothes that were finding their way to his feet was not what captured his attention.

Sherlock… well, Sherlock must have bought him a jumper. He’d know his size, either from sight alone or by poking around his wardrobe, but how he’d done it didn’t really matter. It was black—the jumper—coal with all of its smudgy softness and none of the harsh edges. John had a black sweater—only one, he’d never really gone for it, not like Harry had. The one in his chest of drawers was old, worn, personalized to his particular shade of grey. 

Sherlock had seen a gap, and filled it.

The yielding wool slid from John’s hand as he laid it on the still-mussed bed, and a smile spread over his entire face as he bent to retrieve the rest of his clothes.

It was time.

It was time to take them both home.

*

When John checked the time on his phone, it cruelly informed him that he’d only been lying there for half an hour. It had felt like an _age_. Maybe it was because he was lying on his back; John had never found that particular sleeping position very comfortable. Maybe he was just annoyed because he’d spent several nights in a hospital having absolutely no trouble falling asleep thanks to some lovely medication that he hadn’t really expected to miss. He’d had more trouble staying awake, there, though maybe that had been the fact that there really wasn’t much else to do. Now it was his first night home, he wanted to sleep, but couldn’t. 

Maybe it was because Sherlock’s side of the bed was empty.

John didn’t think he was one of those people who felt lost because someone wasn’t there. He was perfectly capable of sleeping alone and letting people get on with what they needed to do, even if he wanted to curl around them like some sort of human-sized limpet. Except he wasn’t, because it was Sherlock and Sherlock was his exception. (Sherlock was everyone’s exception, after all.) And even though he was only downstairs, pouring over something infectious in the kitchen, there was a nasty panicky feeling rising in John’s chest that was getting more and more difficult to batter into submission.

He shifted under the duvet, wincing into the darkness as he accidentally pressed his hip into the mattress. John knew he wasn’t very good at remembering he was injured and had to take it easy, except when it’d been psychosomatic (the irony), and this time it was even worse. He unconsciously shifted to sleep on the side of this newest wound, even if he didn’t fall asleep on it. But that wasn’t the biggest problem that plagued John’s mind as he heaved himself away from the pillow and swung his feet to the floor—that was more along the lines of what if Sherlock _wasn’t_ just downstairs? What if _Sherlock_ got himself shot and—

John didn’t really want to go there, even though he knew he must. 

He rubbed at his eyes as he stretched—gingerly—and walked towards the faint yellow glow of light at the bottom of the stairs. He’d gone to bed stupidly early; normally Sherlock would have just picked up whatever it was he was going and brought it to bed with him, but John had told him to stay up if he was likely to ooch around. He was close to regretting that decision, now, for even if he’d been nudged and shuffled and suffered at the hand of his injury it would have been Sherlock. Instead, as John had stared at the inside of his eyelids, the anxiety just kept trundling back. Sherlock’s ability to be both the source of distress and the one to soothe it was uncanny. 

John made sure to make as much noise as possible as he took the stairs one-by-one, leaning his weight heavily on the step that seemed to squeal rather than squeak. Sherlock would have known he was coming downstairs anyway, but John’s exaggeration invited him to comment, told him that John _wanted_ him to say something—anything. They didn’t say hello and how are you; they gave each other permission to speak, permission to speak their minds more coarsely than they might with anyone else.

Sherlock turned away from his microscope just as John stepped over the threshold from the landing into the kitchen. He didn’t waste any time. ‘You’ve not slept.’

‘No,’ said John, his voice entirely undiluted. That wasn’t the only sign, either, he knew; you didn’t hang around with Sherlock and not pick anything up. He looked like he’d been to bed, with rumpled shirt and ruffled hair, but it didn’t extend to his eyes. If anything, the annoyance at not getting to sleep had overridden any tiredness that may have once been on his features.

‘Not unusual. It’s only half past ten.’

John snorted as he walked to the opposite side of the kitchen, Sherlock’s bright eyes following him the entire way (occasionally slipping to glance at his hip). ‘An entirely normal time to go to bed.’

‘For some.’ Sherlock sounded contemptuous, and he turned back to his slide.

The quiet that fell between them was almost suffocating. It wasn’t silence, with Sherlock’s muttering about strains and symptoms and the low murmur of life outside vibrating through the walls, but it was too close for John’s liking; too much like those months alone in 221B with only a whisper of Sherlock’s voice in the back of his mind. John glanced around the room, hands flexing against where he’d gripped the counter behind him as he looked for something to do with them. Even then, after all the time they’d spent together, he thought he might just have made it all up. Maybe he’d just wake up one day and Sherlock would still be dead and he’d be a nothing more than a physical wreck. And then, on the other side, a wave of nausea washed over him as John remembered that he’d probably have to do it all over again one day, when Sherlock inevitably pushed someone just that little bit too far, or got caught up in crossfire, or fell off another tall building, or took a ricocheted bullet right there, inside the flat, when he started shooting the walls again. 

 _God_ , there were just so many ways for him to— 

‘Sherlock,’ John barked as he squeezed his eyes shut against the images, and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

The muttering came to an abrupt stop, mid-sentence. No doubt Sherlock would be able to pick it up immediately when he went back to it. There was a pause, then, and John kept his eyes shut as he waited for Sherlock to observe his tense figure. If he opened them, then it’d be too easy. Sherlock would see everything—if he hadn’t seen it all already.

‘Shall I put up the bunting?’

John’s eyes shot open. ‘I’m surprised you even know what bunting is.’

Sherlock waited a beat, and then: ‘A tool for strangulation.’

‘Charming.’ John shook his head, although a smile tugged alluringly at his lips. ‘Where’s the kettle?’ 

Sherlock jerked his head in the general direction of the sitting room, and by the time John had found the appliance in question (on the bookshelf, _again_ ) the detective was patching together another homemade slide and most likely contaminating the entire kitchen. John gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the creeping feeling that he might have a nasty infection by the morning as he filled the kettle and picked out one of the few tea bags that were still intact. Making tea was a routine, something he usually didn’t think about but also something he could walk himself through, tell himself the steps as he did them so he didn’t have to think about anything else. It wasn’t a flawless plan, however, and the images of blood and breathlessness swam in front of his watch face as he timed the brew.

He had only just poured enough milk into his mug when Sherlock spoke again, and John very nearly added just as much to the countertop.

‘You were saying?’

John ignored Sherlock’s probing tone as he stirred the drink in front of him, tapping the spoon on the brim of the mug before placing it in the sink. He took a scalding sip—one that he’d probably still be feeling in the morning—and turned to face the detective. Sherlock had more than finished with whatever he’d been doing a minute ago, and was leaning back to observe John’s motions, the microscope and slides forgotten. He’d piqued Sherlock’s interest, then, in some strange way. Surely not just by saying he’d been thinking?

‘I’ve been thinking, Sherlock—’

‘Yes, you said that. Is that why you can’t sleep?’

John shrugged. ‘Maybe. Probably. I don’t know, I can’t think straight when my mind’s racing.’

‘Pity.’

‘Sherlock, just—’ John cut himself off as he realised he was being brusque and clenching the handle of his mug far too tightly. He wasn’t angry; at least, he thought he wasn’t. He didn’t even know anymore. ‘—just listen, for once in your life?’

He was well aware of how defeated he sounded, and he must have sounded close to keeling over, because Sherlock listened. He looked like he wanted to retort, to come out with some sort of witty comeback that he’d been saving for a situation just like this one, but he bit back his tongue. John could actually see the physical effort it took for him to stop himself from just mouthing off.

The milky tea in his hands suddenly seemed like the most fascinating thing in the room. ‘You remember what you said in the hospital?’

‘I said a lot of things.’

‘Yes, well, this one stuck with me,’ John continued, his tone matching Sherlock’s clipped one. When he opened his mouth again, however, the words kept getting stuck in his throat. ‘You said—you said you couldn’t get them to let you stay with me, you said they wanted relations and that you didn’t count and—’ John paused and took a calming glup of English Breakfast as his mind caught up with his words. ‘Sherlock, I want you there.’

Sherlock frowned, and folded his arms across his chest. ‘That doesn’t change hospital policy, John.’

‘Something else can, though.’

John watched as Sherlock perked up with the idea of a clue, a puzzle, only to have his lip curl as he arrived at a seemingly obvious conclusion. ‘Mycroft?’

‘I don’t want Mycroft involved every time one of us takes a turn for the worse, and I doubt you do either.' 

Sherlock’s eyes widened a fraction. ‘You’re saying—’

‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying.’ John cut him off, just in case concrete terms scared them both off.

‘Officially?’

‘Officially.’ 

Sherlock blinked, and looked as if all the blood had just drained out of his face. John was sure that his had just done the same thing; he could feel it.

‘Sherlock, I’m not asking for a lot. I know you don’t want a fuss, I know you don’t want rings or events or announcements or any other shit like that and I don’t either but… hell, I’m getting well ahead of myself here, since you might not even want any of it. I just needed to ask—to ask for a checked box and our names on a form.’ 

‘John…’

He looked up to face Sherlock then, after spending the majority of his words on the section of the tiled backsplash behind his head. Sherlock had that same face on again, the one that preceded Sherlock’s plain-faced acceptance of the inevitability of their separation. John wasn’t having that, not again, and he stepped forward to lean on the table and look Sherlock in the eye. 

‘Don’t even try that argument again, either, Sherlock. Romance is a very shaky basis for commitment. We are not romantics.’ 

For a moment, Sherlock looked a little less green as his reluctant lips echoed a smirk and one of his eyebrows questioned John’s self-awareness.

‘Fine, maybe I am. A bit.’ John relented under Sherlock’s unwavering gaze. ‘But you’re not, so I’m asking for this in a utilitarian sense. I’d be perfectly happy to leave everything as it is now if it suited the way we conducted our lives, but it doesn’t and there’s about a hundred and ten percent chance that we’re going to find ourselves in more hospitals than we can count. I don’t want to be left out in the cold.’

‘Next-of-kin rights aren’t—’

‘Next-of-kin rights aren’t concrete. I don’t want anyone but me to tell you to bugger off. I don’t want anyone but you to stop me from being with you. I want to have a right to you, Sherlock, and you to me. No questions, no ambiguity. I’d like this—’ He gestured between them over the table, narrowly avoiding clipping his fingers on rogue lab equipment. ‘—whatever it is between us, to be on paper.’ 

‘A civil union.’

God, Sherlock made the entire thing seem like the most idiotic idea he’d ever had, but John had gone too far now to turn back—and he didn’t particularly want to.

‘Yes. It doesn’t have to be anything apart from a certificate. It doesn’t change anything, Sherlock. I just want…’ He struggled to find the words to express exactly what had happened when they’d wheeled Sherlock into St Barts on a godforsaken gurney and he’d never seen him again. It was terrible, and morbid, but John wanted to have to be the one to identify Sherlock’s body, if it ever came to that. ‘God, Sherlock, I want a safety net. I want the law to be on our side, for once. I’ve already had my world pulled out from under my feet without one once, and I don’t want it to happen again.’

John didn’t say that he’d seen it happen to Sherlock, too. He’d seen it flash through his eyes in those hours of quiet in the hospital. He’d seen it in the line of his jaw and the tightness in his mouth and the curve of his back. He’d seen everything, more than Sherlock would have wanted him to see, and if he was being brutally honest, it scared him. Sherlock could just disappear whenever he wanted to, remove himself from their life if he thought it was too painful or too dangerous or too good for him, and _that_ terrified John. 

Sherlock wasn’t moving, though. Just sitting, breathing—presumably thinking. At any other moment John would have reached out and taken his hand, running his thumb over the prominent knuckles, but Sherlock was keeping all his limbs clamped to his chest. 

John lowered his voice, trying to stay calm as a new wave of panic and doubt thrashed through his system. ‘We could have it done quietly. No one has to know, if that’s what’s bothering you. Your brother’s basically the British government. Even with his packed schedule I’m sure he could rustle up a few papers and bend a few rules. Twenty minutes, two signatures, done. That’s all we’d have to do. That’s all we’d have to do with it.’

Sherlock didn’t move. That was it, he was gone, lost somewhere in the recesses of his own mind.

John sighed, and dropped the hand that had wandered over the table into his lap. The next thing he knew he was on his feet and the screeching of the chair probably disturbed the foxes—he really wasn’t counting on getting any sleep at all at this point—as he walked away, back to the solitude of darkness and duvets and cold sheets. The mug in his hand felt heavy and burdensome.

He paused at the doorway, and turned to look at the back of Sherlock’s head. ‘I don’t want to be alone, Sherlock, and I don’t want you to be, either.’

They both knew how to be alone, and what it did to them. It wasn’t pretty. 

‘I—I’ll let you think about it. Here,’ he said, placing his half-drunk mug next to where Sherlock had rested his elbow. ‘I’ve gone off it. I’d just knock it off the nightstand if I took it with me, anyway.’

*

John felt as if he was turning into Sherlock. Exactly twenty-six minutes had passed since the downstairs light had been extinguished, and forty-three since he’d bundled himself back into bed. Still, it was as if he’d been there for days, as if he’d spoken to Sherlock a week ago and all he had to hold onto was radio silence. Except it had just been forty-three—no, forty-four—minutes, and John had told himself he’d only keep hoping for an hour. Past that point he’d just be torturing himself, and he really needed to break his habit of doing that. Maybe being without Sherlock might actually help him…

A sharp twinge shot through his side as the thought floated through his mind, and John shook it away behind closed eyes. No, he’d tried that. Had he forgotten already? John turned to face where Sherlock should have been, where they’d spent nowhere near enough mornings together and where he’d first kissed him. Something dense welled up in his throat; Sherlock was right, he was a bit romantic. Mycroft was right, too, in what he’d told Sherlock: caring wasn’t an advantage. John had shook his head at that when Sherlock had told him, but it was more true than ever as he watched the shadows of London’s late nightlife play across the weathered ceiling.

John checked his phone again, hoping that just maybe time would have sped up for his sake, and the blinding light of the miniature screen seared across the darkness. Forty-six minutes. _Shit_.

He huffed. He’d have given anything to lie the way he wanted, but he was a doctor and there was no way that John Watson was going to be the troublesome patient if he could help it—that was Sherlock’s job, anyway. Every sound that he thought might be a foot on a stair or the careful closing of a door was just him rustling against the sheets, desperate to find some way to be comfortable while lying flat on his back. (It wasn’t working.) 

Then there was a muffled crash from downstairs, and John froze mid-shift. That couldn't have been him, unless he’d managed to inadvertently push one of Sherlock’s books off the end of the bed. But the sound wasn’t right for that; all the books were hardbacks, and the thump had been more sloppy than sharp. Magazines, a pile of newspapers, possibly a sofa cushion could have produced a self-muffling crash. Yet John realised with an unnerving heart palpitation that he was focused on the entirely wrong bump in the night. No, what was more pressing was the shriek of the stair and the creak of the banister, the gentle give of wood under a human foot. John pushed his head back into the pillow, counting as the steps came closer and closer to the landing.

Sherlock wasn’t trying to be too quiet, then. Maybe he wanted John to talk to him again; yet only John’s bedroom was on the upper level of the flat, so Sherlock must have had a purpose of his own to drive him up the stairs. Whether or not John wanted to know what that purpose was was a toss-up.

The sound came to a gentle stop, and John pushed himself up onto his elbows to watch Sherlock’s shadow—a darker splodge of black against the darkened wall, an echo of daylight. He was indistinct, fuzzy, and it was only because John had been staring into the dark for so long that he could see him at all.

Could Sherlock see that he’d propped himself up? Could he see that his eyes were searching for something—anything—familiar in the figure shrouded in black? Probably, though he wouldn’t need his eyes. John reckoned the squeaking of the mattress springs and the odd, insubstantial was he was breathing were telling enough. 

After a moment’s stillness, John supposed he’d better make sure the figure actually _was_ Sherlock. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had just sauntered into the flat uninvited.

‘Sherlock…?’

The detective’s shadow didn’t linger as his voice trailed off, and it was probably for the best, John’s hip was starting to protest being held in such an odd position. He didn’t ease back, however, as Sherlock (for it was Sherlock; only Sherlock could move like that in pajamas and look suave) walked towards the bed, dipping his shoulder to avoid the doorframe. John didn’t even lean back when Sherlock displayed his flagrant disregard for furniture by clambering over the wooden frame at the foot of the bed and crawling up its length. It was natural for John to shift his legs to let Sherlock rest a knee inbetween them, and although there was still a heavy weight of dread sitting in the pit of his stomach, he couldn’t help but lean into the warm kiss that Sherlock placed at the corner of his mouth.

John didn’t feel as if it boded well—any of it—as Sherlock pressed his forehead into John’s pillow.

Still, it would have been difficult in any case not to reach out and just connect them together in some way—some small, desperate way that had run circles through John’s mind night after night when they’d been separated by more than a disagreement. So, he gave in; he held a hand to Sherlock’s waist, lost somewhere between t-shirt and dressing gown and skin. Yet he didn’t go any further, didn’t push any harder. Sherlock was an independent being, a body incarnate and separate of its own accord. Unless he gave himself to John in whatever way he thought was best, they were as separate as any other pair of the billion-odd people wandering around the planet. For a strange moment, lying there under Sherlock in his own bed, John had never felt more alone.

That was that, then. He’d misjudged, like always. He’d lost, too, though exactly what it was that was missing was difficult to pinpoint.

Just as John was preparing to give Sherlock’s skin a final squeeze and to lie, to say that it was all right and that he understood and that he’d never really expected Sherlock to agree (except, oh, how he _had_ ), Sherlock nudged against him with one of his many long limbs. John couldn’t be sure which one, for he was too shocked and distracted at the initiation of contact at all, but the words muttered into his ear were the clearest he’d ever heard.

‘I want to do it.’

It took John a moment to recover, to come back from the brink and talk himself down. So long, in fact, that Sherlock raised his buried head to look at him through the thinning darkness, eyes searing and—yes, it was almost true—confused. There was something in the set of his brow that suggested he’d been more comfortable when they weren’t looking at one another. John could sympathize; words certainly didn’t come easily.

Sherlock seemed to have cottoned on, though, as the familiar twinkle of amusement at what he deemed to be stupidity returned. ‘Your argument was very convincing.’

John smiled tentatively. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

He could feel Sherlock’s smirk against the line of his jaw, and John slipped his hand under well-worn cotton to graze his palm along the detective’s skin. ‘All right then.’

The smirk widened, and with a brushing of teeth Sherlock pushed away from the mattress. ‘I’ll ring Mycroft.’

‘Sherlock, _Sherlock—_ ’ John winched against the pain of Sherlock’s sudden movement, and held onto him with a lopsided handful of cashmere. ‘It can wait until morning.’

Sherlock hovered over John’s side, presumably considering where he could put his hands without aggravating the wound. He’d been like that for a while, concerned in his own way. John found it amusing, really, that Sherlock was so mindful of his injury when the man had wandered around with severely damaged ribs without a second thought. Still, even with both of them trying to be as careful as possible, neither of them were very good at it. 

‘Come here.’ John tugged at Sherlock’s side, and angled the trajectory of his descent with his other hand as Sherlock obliged. He settled at John’s side, half of his limbs heavy over John’s in the loose heaviness of relaxation. ‘Sodding hell, I’ve missed you.’

Sherlock made a sleepy sound in the back of his throat into the pillow, then turned his face towards John’s. Lying flat on his back felt more comfortable with Sherlock’s weight on top of him, John’s arm squashed beneath Sherlock’s chest and his fingers tracing the ribs on the detective’s other side. Sherlock had settled for resting an arm high on John’s chest, far from his damaged hip, and squeezed gentle for a spit second in a one-armed embrace. John smiled at the ceiling; his arm was going to go numb, but if it was Sherlock’s fault, then he couldn't care less. Neither of them was going to sleep any time soon, but they settled into their familiar silence anyway. That was what they _did_ , after all.

John was experiencing the first twinges of pins and needles when he broke the silence. ‘You went a bit of a funny colour downstairs.’ 

There was a snuffling sound as Sherlock shifted, his nose bumping John’s shoulder. ‘You… surprised me.’ 

‘ _I_ surprised _you_?’

John could feel Sherlock’s resigned shrug, rather than see it. ‘I thought your eventual departure was inevitable.’

‘After everything we’ve said?’

‘It was the most likely scenario.’ 

‘You’re an idiot,’ said John as he turned to his bedmate, nudging their noses together. ‘That’s not going to happen, Sherlock, though anyone else might think you want it to with the way you go on about it. You told me not to go, and I’m not going. You’re stuck with me.’

Sherlock pulled him further against his body, squeezing with his arm as a silent response. John smiled at him, and tightened his own hold on Sherlock’s torso. They could each feel each other’s hearts beating against the skin of their chests, and not even the blaring of passing police sirens could drown it out.

‘If it makes you feel any better,’ John began through the silence as he rubbed his foot against Sherlock’s ankle, ‘we can always dissolve the union. I can still leave you if you leave horrible things in the fridge. If you keep that fact in mind then you can hold on to your bloody precious logic.’ 

‘I don’t want to.’

John turned back to the ceiling as he chuckled. ‘Course you do. You love logic.’ 

There was a conspicuous silence after John’s soft laughter, and he almost turned to search Sherlock’s expression. He didn’t have to, however, as Sherlock pressed his forehead to the bone of John’s shoulder and shuddered out a breath that had somehow formed words. 

‘I love you, John.’

John shifted so he could see Sherlock’s mop of dark hair, and sighed. ‘I know, Sherlock. I know.’ He bent his neck to press a kiss to the top of Sherlock’s head, and rested his mouth to where the errant curls of his fringe met his forehead before he spoke again. ‘I love you, too.’


	13. Chapter 13

Sometimes, John wished he wouldn’t sleep with his mobile on the bedside table. Not that he really believed all the scaremongering about electromagnetic waves and that rest of that mumbo-jumbo; no, that didn’t matter. It was essential that John could be contacted at all times—even in sleep. Still, that was the bit that was currently bothering him.

John blinked, bleary-eyed against the light fighting its way around his thick curtains, and tried to remember how to stop the godforsaken assault on his ears. Sherlock didn’t move beside him; judging by his breathing and the weight of his foot on John’s calf, the deaf sod might even have been asleep. John couldn’t really blame him, though: he’d just spent three nights in a chair next to John’s hospital bed, and even Sherlock Holmes needed the regenerative power of sleep.

With the pain in his side dulled by the still-lingering fog of sleep, John forwent heaving himself into a sitting position in favour of flinging an arm out in the general direction of the table. He’d managed to knock over a bottle of painkillers and lost a couple of pens down the back of the headboard when he finally held the phone in front of his eyes.

John groaned as he read the name flashing on the small screen, and reluctantly accepted the call. ‘Mycroft? Bit early, mate.’

‘We are within perfectly reasonable working hours, Dr Watson.’

Mycroft’s voice managed to be crisp, even over such a crackly connection. 

John shifted closer to Sherlock’s back, pulling one of the ties from the detective’s dressing gown from under his thigh. Why had he left that on…? Oh, what the hell.

He yawned, chasing the sleepiness that was leaving him. John Watson would get back to sleep yet. ‘Well, _we’re_ not.’

‘You never are.’ 

That was probably as close as Mycroft would get to a sentimental well-wishing; John smiled. ‘What do you want?’

As if on cue, Sherlock stirred with a snuffle. ‘John?’

John interrupted Mycroft’s convoluted and overly polite explanation of… God knows what. ‘Hold on a sec, Mycroft,’ he said before glancing over his shoulder at Sherlock. ‘Mmhm?’ 

‘Tell Mycroft,’ he said, voice roughened by sleep and stretched by an ill-timed yawn, ‘to piss off.’

There was no chance that John could have smothered that chuckle in his state, and he switched back to speaking into the phone pressed against his ear. ‘You hear that?’

‘Crystal clear,’ said Mycroft, sounding more sharp than put out. 

‘We’ll be in touch,’ John said with a sarcastic smile that would have rivaled Sherlock’s, and he exited the call as quickly as possible. No one wanted to deal with Mycroft without all their faculties intact. 

John was just about to turn the phone off properly—even though bloody Mycroft could probably turn it on remotely if he really wanted to speak to him—and bury himself in a mound of sheets when he noticed another less intrusive notification on the periphery of the screen. _Text Message : Greg Lestrade._  

 _12-05-2013 07:43  
_ _Sherlock texted me. Told me to  
_ _keep my cases to myself. ??? —GL_  

John read the small, sans-serif letters—then reread them. Then he looked over at Sherlock, still burrowed in his pillow, and back to the text again.

 _12-05-2013 10:27  
_ _Let’s see how long that lasts. —JW_

He let his head loll back against the pillow as his phone made the _whoosh_ ing sound of a sent message. It didn’t take him long to be tempted into closing his eyes, and when the mobile vibrated in his still-clenched hand, it was a bit of a fight to open them.

 _12-05-2013 10:29  
_ _Nice thought though. —GL_

It _was_ a nice thought. It would have been even more of a nice thought if it didn’t make John suspect that Sherlock was terribly ill. The fact that he’d even taken steps to avoid work instead of just thinking about it struck of a sudden psychotic episode. Still, John knew it wouldn’t last. They’d get six hours in and Sherlock would be dying to crash into New Scotland Yard and commandeer some poor sod’s case.

When John looked to his side, however, and saw Sherlock settled under the duvet like some sort of oversized feline, he reckoned they might just be able to enjoy a quiet morning. Or afternoon, depending on when they rolled out of bed. John wasn’t inclined to do any rolling just yet, though, and by the look of it neither was Sherlock. The detective lay on his side, one arm curled on the pillow and the other furled out. His hand hung off the side of the mattress, too big for the bed just like he was a bit too big for everything. 

John shifted, shuffling closer to his bedmate with consideration of his stitches, and sucked a gentle rosiness into the crook of Sherlock’s neck, eliciting a sated grumble.

‘Dozy bastard,’ John said into the skin of sherlock’s shoulder. ‘You’re actually a nice fella, when you can be bothered.’ 

Sherlock rolled his shoulder, pressing the joint into John’s breastbone. ‘I’m very rarely bothered.’

‘Should I be flattered?’

‘Hmmm,’ said Sherlock, humming low in his throat as he turned to face John. He got a bit stuck in the excess fabric of his dressing gown, but muddled his way through and emerged with a smug smile. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t end up dropping your phone on your face, typing like that.’

John snorted as he settled back on his pillow, turning to face Sherlock with a mock scowl. ‘Sod off.’ 

‘You love it,’ drawled Sherlock with a widening grin. John couldn’t help but let his own face imitate it. Sherlock shifted closer to John’s side, and tucked his nose under John’s chin; his arm was a heavy and welcome weight over the doctor’s ribs.

John wrinkled his nose as he smiled. ‘Yeah,’ he said with Sherlock’s steady breaths ghosted over his collarbone. ‘Yeah, I kind of do.’

*

It turned out that John’s proposition could wait for a lot longer than ‘until tomorrow.’

In fact, it was another three days before John even thought about it. His worries had been quelled, Sherlock had agreed, they hadn’t hobbled any farther than the first bench inside Regents Park, and everything had been fine. Nobody died, nobody left, nobody overdosed on Mrs Hudson’s herbal soothers and nobody shot at the recently patched walls. John still meant it, though. He still wanted to do it, to call Mycroft and tell him to gather the papers, Sherlock and John were getting hitched, yet—there was no hurry. At least, not at that particular moment. 

It was difficult to imagine that anyone could think they were in any kind of hurry when Sherlock wandered about the flat as he brushed his teeth, bathroom to bedroom to kitchen and back again, sometimes reading as he went. That particular morning he’d settled for leaning against the hob with a battered copy of _Evidence: Text and Materials_ , the only book John had ever seen him reread.

Sherlock looked infinitely less imposing with a toothbrush hanging from his mouth as he turned the pages.

God, he just might have seemed _normal_. 

* 

Sherlock was back to himself by the sixth day, and by ‘ _himself_ ,’ John would have meant that Sherlock was getting restless. He’d burnt through his supply of toes and flammable chemicals, spent an entire day deducing everyone who passed their window, and written a passive-aggressive post on John’s blog that already had sixteen comments before John managed to delete it. Damage control was turning into a full-time job by the time Sherlock had self-diagnosed himself with some obscure condition on WebMD—though John had a tickling suspicion that was more along of the lines of Sherlock’s roundabout way of asking for companionship than anything else. 

The straw the broke the camel’s back fell on the eighth day. Although Sherlock had done what John suspected he considered ‘his best’ with the washing up (he’d actually just carried plates to the sink and left Mrs Hudson to deal with the rest), John leant over the table where they had enjoyed a cramped breakfast and reached out for Sherlock’s half-empty plate. His wound, although still bandaged and liable to deliver shooting pains down his entire side, was behaving relatively well with menial tasks, especially compared to his shoulder. He hadn’t been able to shrug properly for months. The damn thing had even interfered with his bloody _apathy_.

It was Sherlock, however, who was proving to be the interference this time. John knew he’d be curious—as much as the man worked with cadavers and chemicals and cases, he very rarely got the chance to examine a live injury without some sort of kidnapping. And John’s wound was one that popped up often in their line of work. Well, not John’s, obviously—he was a GP, not a trauma surgeon. But still, the point was still valid.

John’s shirt had ridden up as he leant across the width of the table; Sherlock, still lounging on the end of the sofa, didn’t even try to hide the fact he was interested in what lay under his bandages. He was debating whether or not to ask—not because he might not, no, John knew that the pestering was an inevitability. No, Sherlock was just trying to ascertain the most opportune moment. 

Well, John was just going to have to beat him to it, wasn’t it?

‘All right, then,’ he said, piling the plates and cutlery on top of each other and leaning the tower of ceramics next to a hardback open to a page detailing death by asphyxiation. ‘Get over here.’

Sherlock just stared at him. He might of blinked, but John could have imagined that.

‘Don’t play dumb with me, Sherlock,’ John continued, stepping further into the center of the sitting room. ‘Here.’ 

If there was ever a time when Sherlock would put up with being spoken to as if he was some sort of mischievous terrier, that was it, for Sherlock peeled himself away from the leather cushions and came to a towering halt in front of John. When Sherlock didn’t immediately reach out and take what he wanted with either his mouth or his hand, John sighed exaggeratedly and seized Sherlock’s hand, placing it over his injury. The weight wasn’t painful—no pressure, no compression. Just… reassurance, though for whom…

‘I can tell you want to know, Sherlock, and I _want_ to tell you.’

For a moment John wondered if that was what had been holding him back; he doubted Sherlock had ever known anyone willing to offer themselves to him, not even Molly and her bags of fingers. For once, maybe, he wanted to ask and to be given, instead of just taking. He’d had a lifetime of taking, after all. 

Sherlock froze, though only for a split second, as smiles drew themselves across each of their faces. This was _them_. They had to be the most deranged couple in Greater London—and there were a lot of them to choose from—but they could be happy. They would be, time permitting. 

Sherlock cocked his head wordlessly, as he’d been all morning, and John patted his arm. ‘Poke around as much as you want. Well,’ he added as an afterthought, ‘within reason. I am a doctor, but I can only fix so many of your messes.’

An even wider smile played on his lips for a moment, and Sherlock traced the bandage tape with the tips of his fingers; John could only guess why. Comparing the size of the treatment with the size of the injury, probably. He’d seen it, after all. He’d know. 

The firm tug on the hem of his pyjama top, however, was a much clearer demand that John fulfilled as soon as the understanding reached his brain. Pulling the fabric over his head with crossed arms, he grazed Sherlock’s knuckles, and by the looks of it, his noise and fringe as well. It still wasn't the weather to be breaking out the shorts and the barbecues, and a breeze wafted through the open window, nudging the curtains and raising goosebumps over John’s bare shoulder. Or was that Sherlock, as he rested his palm against the pristine wrapping of John’s side and gazed at the older wound, his lashes and chin and breath tickling as much as the wind? John turned and pressed a kiss to the shell of Sherlock’s ear. Somehow, his own hand had come up and gripped Sherlock where the detective gripped him.

Mirror images. Sherlock did so appreciate symmetry.

John had never really thought about his shoulder being interesting; even the scar tissue was smoother than it had been a year ago and it was entirely routine, but Sherlock’s piercing gaze and the wufts of his breaths suggested otherwise. He hadn’t gone out of his way to hide it—why should he? After all, Sherlock knew he had it, and why—but he’d never shared it with him, either. He hadn’t thought anything of it. Sherlock thought bodies were nothing more than transport and, on occasion, roadblocks. So why would he be bothered?

Apparently, he was. Quite bothered. John almost smiled as the nimble fingers he’d watched hover and dash over bodies and crime scenes and chemicals on the boil feathered across his skin. 

The memories of Sherlock’s body painted his clothed shoulders black and blue as John rested his forehead against the taller man’s collarbone. He couldn’t forget that. Not really. He just distracted himself for long periods of time. Would Sherlock be able to forget him lying there, squeezing his hand with the last of the energy he possessed? The shivering? John’s skin, slippery with blood? The terror that had hidden in Sherlock’s commanding voice? 

 _God._ They didn't even have one healthy body between them.

John hadn’t even realized he’d closed his eyes before Sherlock pulled away from his shoulder, and was sinking to his knees to get a closer look at John’s newest wound. The image they made and the tickling of Sherlock’s breaths on his stomach triggered a chuckle that hadn’t graced the walls of 221B that morning.

‘Careful,’ John said, with mock warning, as he laid a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. ‘People will talk.’ 

Sherlock’s grin could have been threatening if John hadn’t been so familiar with it. ‘People do little else.’

John grinned back, and tilted his head so he was staring at the ceiling as Sherlock peeled off the dressing. ‘Really, though. There’s no need to feed the rumours _quite_ so thoroughly.’

‘Where there’s smoke,’ Sherlock murmured, and the quiet kiss he left on John’s hip would linger longer than the stinging did. 

The chuckle would, too.

*   

Sherlock managed to ascertain at least three days’ worth of data from twenty minutes with John’s wound. John hadn’t expected to be quite that interesting, but it _had_ prevented any more experiment-related accidents. He didn’t really fancy being woken by another electrical fire. So, all in all, the previous few days had been all right.

John couldn’t really complain about the current one, either. Apart from one surprising encounter with frogspawn in a jam jar first thing that morning, they’d had a relatively quiet day in. Not that any day in a household containing Sherlock Holmes could be considered quiet—but close enough. The man in question had abandoned his complicated spreadsheet in favour of settling in his chair, squinting at the small screen of his mobile as his thumbs did something complicated. John reckoned that he was going a not unconvincing impression of a lovestruck teenage girl, if he ignored the fact it was far more likely for Lestrade to burst through the door holding an evidence bag containing a bloodied knife than anything remotely romantic.

And in an odd way that he’d found familiar, John was glad as he sat behind Sherlock on a chair from the table pushed back to catch the breeze from the open window. One of his arms was curled around Sherlock—elbow and palm resting on opposite shoulders—as he balanced his laptop on his knee with the other. Occasionally Sherlock would grunt, scoff, and John would feel the vibration through his skin and smile. That had been the extent of their conversation for the afternoon, and John’s steaming mug of tea drew a slow, hot circle in the wood of the dining table.

It was funny, really, that at one point John would have hated the quiet, and now he took any small piece of it he could get. Probably because he knew it wouldn’t last long enough for him to finish even a small cup of tea.

He should have known, then, that he’d almost scald himself mid-sip when there was a brisk rap of knuckles against the open door.

John even managed to clip Sherlock’s chin with his retreating hand before he recognized the figure standing in the doorway. He shouldn’t have been able to, just like his parents had never been able to recognize his swimming instructor when she wasn’t wearing a swimsuit, but the set of her features triggered something in his mind that placed her almost immediately. Sherlock, of course, didn’t respond and kept looking at his phone until John shoved his shoulder. 

Nathalie looked… well, she looked better. It would have been hard not to, really, but as John took in her neat blonde hair and wide smile, he though she looked better than expected. It’d only been a few weeks since her ordeal, yet she seemed right as rain. _Seemed_ was the operative word, in any case, but even being able to seem all right was a decent start.

‘Oh,’ he started, moving his laptop back to its spot on the table. ‘Hello.’

She replaced the hands she’d used to knock in the pocket of her denim jacket. ‘Hello.’

John grinned. ‘Come on in, then,’ he continued, and the slightly nervous shadow that had flittered across her face was gone as she look a few steps further into the room.

Nathalie may have greeted John with a warm smile, but she turned to Sherlock’s blank expression and extended a hand in greeting.

‘I’m—’

‘Yes,’ Sherlock said sharply, before turning back to his (apparently fascinating) phone. ‘I know who you are.’

‘Oh,’ she said, coming to a halt in the middle of the carpet and letting her hand fall back to rest on top of her satchel. John looked between them both; she clearly expected Sherlock to offer more, and he clearly wasn’t going to.

She tried again, but this attempt included a slightly amused edge to her voice. ‘Detective Inspector Lestrade gave me your address.’

John could tell from the incline of Sherlock’s head that he’d cocked an eyebrow. ‘He’s not supposed to do that.’

‘Funnily enough, he said the same thing,’ Nathalie replied with a growing smile, ‘but he did mention that you’ve got your address on your website. Is this really that different?’

Sherlock huffed. ‘That’s for clients.’

Nathalie’s hands shifted to her hips. ‘And what am I, then?’

John almost laughed, because Sherlock had stopped typing for a split second. There was something of the schoolmarm about her, even if he didn’t think she’d appreciate the comparison.

‘Ignore him,’ John interjected, smothering what felt like a long-suffering smile. ‘He’s just an arse.’

Nathalie managed a toothy smile just as Sherlock piped up again. ‘You get less and less creative with your excuses for me by the day, John.’

‘Case in point.’ John chuckled, and resisted the urge to thwack Sherlock’s shoulder. Instead, he turned to return Nathalie’s small, amused smile. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

She glanced at her watch, and it glinted silver against the cream of her skin. ‘Yeah, go on then, if you don’t mind,’ she said after a moment’s contemplation. ‘I’ve got half an hour before I’ve got to meet some friends for a revision hour.’

John made no move to get up, and instead gave Sherlock’s shoulder a quick shove.

‘Come on, cleverclogs,’ he said as Sherlock turned around to glare at him. ‘I’ve been invalided out of tea-making duties.’

In fact, he was all right making tea, just like he was all right at doing most things that weren’t running the London Marathon. Well, he wasn’t about to explore his proficiency at weight-lifting anytime soon either, which was why he’d made Sherlock move all his case files on his own. He’d done that with only minimal complaining, so he could probably manage tea. He may or may not have had to pinch the back of Sherlock’s neck to get him to get going, but they weren’t going to mention that, were they?

It took a moment for John to process exactly what is was that Nathalie had said, though, and the click of the boiling kettle interrupted his question.

‘You’re still doing your exams?’

Nathalie turned to face him from where she’d ben propping her satchel, smoothing her grey marl skirt as she settled into John’s usual armchair. ‘Why not?’ she said, folding her hands in her lap. ‘I’d feel worse if I was doing nothing.’

‘I can’t argue with that,’ John said as he shifted his own chair so he could face the kitchen and lean on the table.

‘They’re not all exams, either. I’ve got a dissertation to finish—’ She patted the corner of an envelope file that was making a bid for freedom from her schoolbag. ‘—or, the masterwork of undergraduate study, as my tutor keeps calling it.’

‘Soon?’

‘Soon enough—for the end of the month. Plus, there’s no reason for me to shut down my life. It’s over, now. Thanks to you two… that’s why I stopped by, really—’

Nathalie was interrupted by Sherlock appearing at her shoulder and plonking a mug of tea on a hardback book (John was sure had been a museum piece at one point in its life) that was taking up most of the space on the side table. Still, he managed not to spill any, and Nathalie smiled her thanks. 

‘None for the invalid?’ John asked with a playful grin as Sherlock made his way back to his own armchair. The look he shot John only elicited another laugh, and something told John that wasn’t _quite_ the reaction he was going for.

When the back of Sherlock’s head became distinctly less amusing, John turned to deal with Nathalie’s growing smile.

‘I’d offer you a biscuit, but…’ He gave Sherlock’s makeshift tabletop laboratory a significant look. She followed his gaze. 

‘I can see I’m taking my life into my hands with the tea.’ She took a sip as she said so. ‘No, don’t worry about it. I can see it’s a bit of a Canary Creams situation.’ 

John sniggered (even if it was a little ungainly) at her widening grin, and eventually at Sherlock’s puzzled, furrowed brow. He was just drawing breath to explain the reference when he realised it was for the best not to mention anything at all—especially if they didn’t want three quarters of an hour’s worth of explanations as to why magic couldn’t work. Not that John wouldn’t have appreciated a custard cream that could turn Sherlock into a canary every now and then. At least his sniping would be birdsong. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes as Nathalie sipped her tea and John tried to shift to take the weight off his side. He was just making a mental mote to take another paracetamol before bed when Nathalie spoke again.

‘So, as I said before, I just wanted to say thank you.’ 

Sherlock chose that moment to reanimate himself. ‘Whatever for?’ 

Nathalie put down her half-empty mug. ‘You came and found me.’

‘I think you’ll find John did that.’

‘ _Shush_ , Sherlock.’ John cut him off before the detective could say anything else.

‘No, he’s right,’ Nathalie countered. ‘You did.’ 

John rubbed at the back of his neck. ‘I’ve sure the Met would have done it better than we did.’

‘Hmph.’ Sherlock snorted. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’

‘Don’t start promoting anarchy while I’m still incapacitated, Sherlock.’

Nathalie chuckled. ‘And it’s all right if he does when you’ve recovered?’

John had the sense to look sheepish. 

‘That’s why I wanted to come, really, though, John. He shot you, and you’d been so kind to me—’

‘He does that.’

‘What? Is kind, or gets shot?’

‘Both.’ 

‘ _Sherlock_ ,’ John warned. ‘Ignore him, Nathalie. Still, it was him who found out where you were.’ 

She looked between them both, John propping himself up against the tabletop and Sherlock resting his head on steepled hands, as she worked a thin ring around her finger.

‘Yeah, so… thank you.’ She paused, pulling the silver band off before pushing it back on again. ‘It seems a bit silly now, but I wanted to say it.’

John smiled. ‘Thank you, then, Nathalie. But it was our pleasure.’

‘You _are_ kind,’ she said, with a suddenly shy smile, before checking her watch. ‘Well, I’d better get on.’

As she pushed herself to her feet and hoisted the satchel back onto her shoulder, John braced himself against the table. ‘I’ll see you out.’ 

Sherlock may have made a dismissive sound and Nathalie may have looked like she had half a mind to refuse, but neither of them stopped John from making his (slightly laboured) way to the door. He was leant against the doorframe when Nathalie turned back to him instead of immediately descending the stairs. 

‘He watches you, when you’re not looking,’ she said, briefly leaning to glance past John’s head. ‘He’s doing it now. Or was, before I looked.’

John shrugged. He was well aware that his and Sherlock’s relationship appeared strange to the outside world. There was no point in denying that. ‘Yeah, he does that. Talks to me when I’m not there, too.’

‘No, really. I don’t know if he knows how obvious it is.’

She sounded serious—serious enough to make John frown. ‘What is?’ 

Nathalie smiled in the face of his concern. ‘The way he looks at you.’

‘That’s his deduction face,’ John said, and he knew that it was some version of his deduction face, perhaps, one that was softer, more—more—John didn’t know what. It was _more_ , though, he reckoned he knew that. Maybe.

She smirked. It wasn’t altogether unlike Sherlock. ‘No, it’s not.’ 

There was a pause between them, and then: ‘I may have suspected as such.’

‘Is that a confirmation?’ asked Nathalie, winking. 

John thought about it for a moment, then grinned. He had a feeling she wasn’t a blabbing type—not that it mattered, in any case. ‘It just might be.’

‘I should have known by the way you said partner.

He barked out a laugh at that, and shook his head as it subsided. ‘You had other things on your mind.’

‘Of course I did,’ Nathalie replied, sharp and bright as she placed a hand on her hip. ‘Doesn’t mean I should have missed it.’

‘God, now _you_ sound like him.’

‘ _John_.’

The doctor glanced over his shoulder into the sitting room, more to acknowledge that he’d heard that to actually see anything. He turned back to Nathalie with an overdone sigh and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘I’ve been summoned.' 

She smiled at him then, more knowing than kindly, and wrapped a hand around the leather strap of her bag as she stepped backwards towards the staircase.‘Best get on, then.’

‘Yeah, if we don’t want another acid burn on the floor.’

Nathalie winced good-naturedly as she laid a hand on the top of the railing. ‘I bet your landlord hates you two.’

John moved to the banister at the top of the landing as she made her way down the first set of steps. ‘We couldn’t get rid of her even if we tried. She’ll probably ambush you with tea and biscuits on your way out.’

‘I’ll keep an eye out.’

‘Run if you don’t appreciate Earl Grey.’

She chuckled. ‘Pity Colin’s not here; he virtually swims in the stuff.’

Nathalie was halfway down the stairs then, the clatter of her booted heels paused as she came to rest on the stage inbetween floors. John could only stare down at her from his vantage point on the landing. Although she could have just kept going and disappeared into the ground floor to which he was no longer privy, she paused and glanced back up at him. 

John took it as an invitation. ‘Good luck,’ he said, aimlessly waving a hand as his other arm supported his weight against the rickety stairs. ‘With everything.’

‘Cheers. You, too—I have a feeling you think you’ll need it.’

He snorted, and said ‘I know I will.’

(Was he really picking _that_ up from Sherlock now, too?)

She shook her head, but was smothering laughter. ‘Judging from his face, you won’t.’

John smiled, and knew he looked like a lovestruck fool. She did, too—smile, that was, as well as know.

‘Goodbye, Dr Watson.’

‘Bye, Nathalie.’

‘I’ll keep in touch.’

‘At your own peril.’

‘Keeping a distance in the comments page should be safe enough.' 

‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’

‘He’s pervasive.’

‘And wouldn’t I know it.’

She laughed, raised a manicured hand in farewell, and disappeared—and as John listened to her fading footsteps, he’d never been so sure that someone would be all right.

* 

Sherlock lunged at the kitchen table, for the newspaper more than the tea, and John put a plate of toast and marmalade in front of him even though (based on previous experience) only one of the three slices would go. Still, it was better than nothing. Sherlock got even more odd when he was running on absolutely nothing, and the last thing they needed for a trip to the Registry Office was a _weird_ Sherlock. Ordinary, half-weird Sherlock was enough.

It was odd enough that they were going to their local Registry Office at all. John was all too aware that he was the one who suggested it, but it was still odd. Not that _odd_ was necessarily an uncomfortable feeling—just the opposite, in fact. If he didn’t like feeling out of sorts, he wouldn’t be able to live with Sherlock at all, would he? He’d had to clear away a selection of neglected petri dishes that morning just so he could use the toaster. He could handle a little paperwork.

John ran his fingers over Sherlock’s shoulders as he passed him to get the milk. ‘Had enough sleep yet?’  

Sherlock grunted. He’d been in some sort of fatigue-related stupor for the past two days, ever since the end of their last case. Granted, it had taken them a week and a half to finish, and the detective had only managed close to eight hours of cumulative sleep during the entire thing. John thought he was an idiot, and had told him so when he ended up tucking him in at eight in the morning on that last night. He got so sprawly when he was exhausted that John had found himself with an arm and a leg completely numb when he next woke up; the snore John got when he shoved Sherlock off his chest was nothing short of impressive. It wasn’t all bad, though—he’d managed to write his blog post in peace and even scheduled a bit of work without Sherlock’s scathing tones.

‘Obviously not,’ he muttered, pouring the liquid over his cornflakes before replacing it in the biohazard that was their fridge. ‘You’ve not said anything intelligible for days.’

The rustle of the paper came to a scrunching stop, and Sherlock peered at John. ‘I’ve said plenty of intelligent things.’

‘I wouldn’t count reciting bits and pieces of the Shipping Forecast two hours after it’s been broadcast as particularly intelligent,’ John said with raised eyebrows as he took the seat opposite Sherlock.

‘I wouldn’t count having the Shipping Forecast on at all as intelligent,’ Sherlock countered, leaning back in his chair and shaking the newspaper so it lay flat in his hands. ‘Or has it slipped your notice that you’re not on a boat?’

John laughed. ‘Piss off.’ He munched his way through a spoonful of cereal, paused, and added, ‘Tosser.’

Sherlock did that wide half-smile then, the one that wrinkled the skin around his eyes. It only really ever came out when John prompted it; occasionally it would appear for half a second when someone had been particularly clever, but it only hung around when it was them, on their own. John grinned at him before shoveling in another mouthful, and he read the back of Sherlock’s paper as he chewed.

They were quiet, then, like they could be if they put their minds to it. Mrs Hudson would be up any minute to make sure they hadn’t both dropped dead. Still, Sherlock managed to polish off two of the three triangular slices—John wondered if it was some kind of record—and just might have shoved the plate in John’s direction in order to offer him the third. In any case, John bumped his knee against Sherlock’s as he grabbed the toast and got to his feet. He left his rinsed-out cereal bowl in the sink; the washing up would have to wait.

They did, after all, have quite an important appointment.

*

John didn’t really know why he glanced up and down the street as he followed Sherlock out of the cab.

They had every reason to be in the Registry Office, after all. They could feasibly be on a case. Neither of them were in suits—well, Sherlock was, but that was only because he _always_ was. There was no tie in sight that could possibly imply that they were there on anything other than business. John might have even been to convince himself that they were there on business if it wasn’t for the way Sherlock had arranged John’s fingers around his wrist on the way there. A pulse didn’t lie, so neither did they.

*

Mycroft was waiting for them. When wasn’t he? John didn’t really want to think about how much of their life Mycroft knew about. In fact, they hadn’t even had to call him about organizing the entire thing; he’d just shown up when Lestrade was arresting the man Sherlock had identified as the killer and repeated himself. _Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?_

The smarmy bastard. He was just as conniving as Sherlock, really. Just posh-ed up a bit.

At the time Sherlock had just waltzed up to them, stepping rather too heavily in a puddle whose spray splattered Mycroft’s trouser leg, and told his brother to, quote, ‘Just get on with it.’ John supposed they had some sort of understanding in that statement, because for once Mycroft just nodded, got back in that bloody omnipotent car, and swanned off. Anthea had texted John the date of the appointment an hour later. 

Now he stood, unassuming, beside a young registrar who had his hand wrapped tightly around the handle of a briefcase. Mycroft smiled that strange, disembodied smile as he saw John and Sherlock approach through the reception. 

‘Good morning, John, Sherlock,’ he said as they came to a halt in front of him. ‘This is Mr Swanson, a colleague of mine. Very discreet.’

Mr Swanson extended a hand, and both John and Sherlock shook it in turn. If John felt like his hand was developing a bit of a mind of its own, then that was that and it definitely wasn’t nerves.

‘I do apologise for the delay,’ Mycroft continued, although John couldn’t imagine that there was any sort of delay to speak of—they’d only waited forty-eight hours. ‘If you want to get absolutely done without anyone noticing until it’s almost too late, form a committee of experts. Preferably people who make their living talking about the big picture and relying on other people to work out the details.’ 

Sherlock pulled a face that almost made it to a snarl. ‘You must mean people such as yourself.’ 

‘On the contrary, Sherlock, though I must insist—’ Mycroft gestured towards a closed door. ‘—that you please go through.’

They did. John was still trying to muddle his way through Mycroft’s words—was he trying to say something?—when he realised Lestrade was at in a chair nearby a large, stately desk, reading that morning’s edition of _The Independent._ They managed to exchange a brief gesture of (slightly bewildered) greeting before Mr Swanson jumped headfirst into getting the quote-on-quote ceremony under way. Before John had a chance to wonder if what they were doing was really a ceremony or not, or whether he wanted to think about it that way or not, there he and Sherlock were, standing before a single-page form with Mycroft and Lestrade standing to one side.

It was only Sherlock’s utterly bored expression that made John think he wasn’t actually having some sort of mad delusion. 

Mr Swanson cleared his throat. ‘Do either of you have anything you’d lik—’ 

‘No.’

The registrar spluttered for a moment, but managed to compose himself. ‘Excuse me, sir?’

Sherlock sighed before repeating himself. ‘No, we don’t.’ 

Mr Swanson looked at him with narrowed eyes before turning to John. He didn’t have to actually ask the question for John to supply the appropriate answer. 

‘Nah,’ John said with a grin. He gestured between the two parties with a finger. ‘Best skip this bit.’ 

Lestrade smothered a bark of a laugh. John could tell that Mr Swanson was still dubious as to why he would want to legally bind himself to someone quite as abrasive as Sherlock bloody Holmes—and there was certainly a swift elbow to the side in the detective’s future—but Mycroft cleared his throat and the registrar snapped back to the business at hand.

‘Right then, gentlemen,’ he continued, plucking an ornate pen from the pocket of his jacket. ‘If you could just sign here, at the bottom of the document. Mr Holmes, if you would…?’

He was still unscrewing the cap as he spoke, but offered Sherlock the handsome fine-tipped fountain pen with a flourish as he pushed the page across the smooth mahogany of the desk. John couldn’t help but notice that he kept the cap tightly in his grip even as he relinquished the rest; there must have been a story there. He made a mental note to ask Sherlock, later, when they would laugh about the entire thing, but as the crisp, wet line of ink morphed into Sherlock’s name, there didn’t seem to be any need to think of anything else. John almost didn’t notice when Sherlock waved the pen in front of his chest. 

He took it, placed nib to paper and before he knew it, there was his name. The height of his ‘J’ looped with the curve of Sherlock’s ‘S’, and if he thought about it, that was about as symbolic as anything else.

Then Mr Swanson was shaking their hands, offering congratulations that John doesn’t seem to feel they need, and then Sherlock was nodding and there was the brush of the side of his coat against John’s leg as he turned around—

‘Oi!’ John called, only just managing to catch Sherlock’s arm before he stalked out of his reach. In any case, Sherlock stopped dead in his tracks as soon as John’s fingers even grazed the fabric encasing his skin, and it didn’t take much to tug him back around. ‘C’mere, you great sod.’

Somehow, John managed to bundle Sherlock into an odd representation of a hug, and kissed his chin. Sherlock looked down at him, a small line marring the skin inbetween his furrowed brows. John made a little noise. He didn't know what he was saying, quite, but Sherlock seemed to appreciate it.

Mycroft wore a bored expression that probably said more about how pleased he was than if he’d burst into a round of applause, but Lestrade clutched at his chest in a dramatic faux swoon. John grinned at the winking Detective Inspector from where he’d tucked his head under Sherlock’s chin. From the tension in his neck and jaw, John could reasonably guess that Lestrade was on the receiving end of Sherlock’s best and most withering glare. He was holding up well—properly chuckling, too.

Mr Swanson cleared his throat. ‘And if the witnesses would just sign here…’

John stepped away from Sherlock, patting his arm in a gesture which he didn’t really understand. It felt apt, though, as Mycroft provided his own pen. Its dark, legal green ink stood out against the black that still lay drying before them. Surprisingly enough, Lestrade borrowed Mycroft’s, but was obviously less comfortable with it. He looked positively relieved when the statesman tucked it back into his jacket pocket. 

And then they were done, Mr Swanson was slipping their form back into his briefcase, and they all followed Sherlock’s flapping coat out of the room. Lestrade fell into step next to John just as Mycroft stopped to have a quiet word with his brother. For a moment John considered going over to the pair in case there was a need for damage control (there was _always_ a need for damage control, though, and Mycroft probably had an extra decade of experience at it compared to John), but he left them to it.

‘What was all that palaver about, then?’

He turned to face Lestrade, ignoring the stiffening expression on Sherlock’s face. ‘Don’t ask me. I know very little about what goes on in his head.’

‘Well, none of us really know, do we?’ Lestrade replied with a small, bittersweet smile. ‘With anyone.’

John frowned; Mycroft had just pulled that face, the one that said he was finished speaking with you even if you weren’t with him, but that wasn’t what occupied his mind. Wasn’t that what love was? Accepting each other’s neuroses? They certainly had enough of those to go around. Accepting the fact that you wouldn’t understand, not really, not completely? John had accepted that long ago. He’d accepted that before Sherlock had jumped, and he’d accepted that he wouldn’t understand when he’d stood by Sherlock by the Thames on that first evening. They both knew they wouldn’t really know about each other, not really, in the same way you couldn’t imagine someone else’s pain, but that was why they were willing to try.

‘No…’ John started, offering a growing smile as Sherlock spun on his heel to walk back towards them. ‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Come on,’ Lestrade said brightly as he clapped a hand on John’s shoulder. ‘I’m taking you two for a pint.’

John was more than happy to indulge him, even if Sherlock wasn’t.

‘Lead the way, Detective Inspector!’

*

The closest pub with comfortably full for lunchtime. Some people had even taken to nursing their pints on the tables outside, as the sun was out. One might even have said that it was a particularly lovely day for a wedding.

God, it was just as weird. Them? Married? Civil union-ed, or whatever the term was? Completely bonkers. Utterly mad.

So it made complete sense, really, didn’t it?

Lestrade’s voice pulled John away from his thoughts. ‘What d’you fancy?’

John glanced around as he stepped out of the way of a group of patrons on their way to the door. Even though he could clearly see what was on tap as well as the bottles lining the back wall, he didn’t seem to be able to think properly. Not that he’d ever been that bothered about what beer he drank. That’d always been Lestrade’s vice; for a copper, he was very particular about what he called real ale.

He shrugged. ‘Whatever’s going’ll do.’

Lestrade nodded and gestured to the figure standing at John’s shoulder. ‘Him?’

A quick glance behind him told John that Sherlock was very interested in a couple of men sat in a back corner of the pub. John reckoned they looked innocuous enough, but knowing Sherlock, he’d be gagging for a case. He’d been awake and otherwise unoccupied for all of five hours, after all. There was no chance that John was about to let him make a scene in a pub, though—they’d been barred from one too many already—so he elbowed Sherlock in the ribs. Best nip that one in the bud. 

‘I’d suggest a poison hemlock mixture,’ John said, ignoring Sherlock’s indignant grunt in favour of trying to maintain eye contact with Lestrade as a few tourists pushed their way past them. ‘But I don’t think that’s on tap.’

Lestrade grinned. ‘Socrates?’ 

‘I never had you pegged as a classics scholar,’ John replied as they moved out of the way of the door. 

‘Yeah, well, I watch late-night documentaries too, you know!’ Lestrade said with a laugh as he turned towards the bar. Even so, he glanced back and his smile widened even further. ‘I’d say it looks like you’ve flattered him, John. We all know how dedicated he is to the Socratic method.’

Lestrade waggled his eyebrows then, and whisked off to order the drinks as he left John and Sherlock to claim a table. John turned to look at his partner— _partner!_ —then, and Lestrade was right. There was an odd, pleased look on the edges of Sherlock’s face. Still, it looked like it confused him as much as it did them, so John just said, ‘Come on then, tosspot,’ and they made their way to a table warmed by the sun filtered through the nearby window.

Sherlock was still watching the pair from where they sat, although, so John took the risk of asking him what exactly was so interesting about two painfully normal-looking blokes.

‘Nothing,’ Sherlock said, crossing his arms and sliding down in his seat. ‘They’re deathly boring, but they _are_ managing to fit an impressive amount of pint glasses in their jackets.’

John scoffed. ‘You’re grasping at straws, there, I think. I doubt Lestrade has time for that sort of heinous crime.’

‘Certainly not,’ came Lestrade’s voice as he appeared, balancing three glasses inbetween his two hands. ‘That’s for the boys in Arts and Antiques.’

Sherlock rolled his eyes and gaze the orange juice Lestrade slid across the table a distasteful curl of his lip. John, on the other hand, gratefully accepted the pale ale Lestrade offered him.

‘Is it, really?’ he asked when the policeman settled into a chair opposite. ‘Arts and Antiques?’

‘Nah, ‘course not. But I can’t imagine what else they’d be doing on a day-to-day basis.’

‘No wonder that _lost vermeer_ got through the cracks,’ muttered Sherlock. John glared at him, but was surprised when the detective picked up the glass he’d been nudging towards him.

He turned back to Lestrade; at least he was less confusing. ‘What about you, then? Can the CID survive without its DI?’

‘Sally is perfectly capable of manning the team for a day, no matter what you may think,’ Lestrade said, intonating so the latter part of his statement was aimed almost directly between Sherlock’s narrowed eyes. ‘No, I was owed some leave, and when Anthea shows up in your office and tells you to take time off, you do it. Didn’t realise I was coming to your bloody _wedding_ until this morning, though, did I? Sneaky bastards.’

‘When have we ever been anything else?’

Sherlock hid his smile behind his glass, and John bumped his knee.

‘No, that’s true,’ Lestrade said, ‘Still, though. Congratulations, I guess.’

‘Wishing me luck might be a better use of your time.’

‘You’ve been living with him for years. You’d have been dead long before now if you weren’t going to go the distance.’ 

‘You haven’t seen the fridge this week, have you?

‘I think that’s the environmental health’s department, John,’ quipped Sherlock from where he was craning his neck to look out the window.

‘Shut up, Sherlock,’ John said, lacking heat. He turned back to Lestrade after he’d placed a hand on Sherlock’s knee. ‘So you’re off duty?’

Lestrade didn’t notice how Sherlock leant closer to John’s shoulder—or if he did, he decided to politely ignore it. ‘Not exactly. I’m still on call. If a body turns up, I’m afraid I’ll have to excuse myself from our little knees-up.’

‘Not a massive loss,’ whispered Sherlock, more into John’s ear than anything else, but it still earned him a kick to the shin that summoned a smile on all of their faces.

‘What will you two do now, then?’ Lestrade asked when they’d had enough of a companionable silence.

John shrugged. ‘Work.’

‘Really?’ 

‘Did you expect anything else?’ 

Lestrade paused for a moment, half-empty glass midway to his mouth, until he shrugged as well and said, ‘No, not really. I can’t imagine you two on a Greek island, somehow.’

‘Neither can I,’ John replied, barking out a laugh just as Sherlock shot Lestrade another withering glare.

He was very glad he wouldn’t have to spend days away with Sherlock’s mind going a hundred miles an hour. He doubted Sherlock could even bear the flight. How he’d ever made it to Florida without a sedative was an utter mystery. The train to _Devon_ had been hellish, and he liked—loved—Sherlock. What a group of strangers at thirty thousand feet thought… well, John didn’t really need to know what they thought. It couldn’t have been good.

‘You wouldn’t get a word in edgewise even if you did find a body on the beach. Something tells me the local rozzers wouldn’t appreciate your input, even if Sherlock did start spewing Greek.’

John folded his arms as he leant on the table, his unfinished drink close to an elbow. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. I could swear I’ve seen a copy of _The Odyssey_ in ancient Greek around the flat somewher—oi!’

He had shifted to wrap his hand around glass only to find that it wasn’t there. He turned, indignant, to where Sherlock say with the frothy glass in his hand, raised to his chin. John pursed his lips and turned, shaking his head, back to Lestrade. ‘Every time. _Every_ time.’

Lestrade chuckled as Sherlock took a ship and pulled a face—the same one he pulled when given tea made with evaporated milk. Even so, he shoved the glass back on the table and said, ‘What’s mine in yours, isn’t that the idea?’

John laid a claim back on his drink. ‘Would you prefer tea?’ he asked, unable to keep the ever-pervasive sarcasm out. 

Sherlock smirked. ‘Yes, actually, I woul—’

He was interrupted by the shrill tone of Lestrade’s phone. The policeman plucked the device from his pocket, glanced at the display, and mouthed an apology before answering. John ignored the pleasantries being exchanged over telephone line in favour of hissing at Sherlock’s blank gaze.

‘What?’ he said, raising an eyebrow in what John expected was an insubstantial imitation of Sherlock’s expert gesture. ‘Running low on fuel?’

Sherlock sneered. ‘Beer is not fuel, _doctor_.’ 

‘Neither is tea, Sherlock! _Food_ is fuel—’

John cut himself off mid-word when he realised he’d lost Sherlock’s full attention to whatever it was that Lestrade was discussing. He was sat crouched over the table, phone pressed to one ear and a finger to the other, and from the way Sherlock’s ears had come as close to pricking as any human’s could, there had to be a body in the offing. John downed the rest of his drink and squeezed Sherlock’s knee. He knew where this was going, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t interested, either.

Sherlock jumped into action as soon as Lestrade had ended the call. ‘So?’

Lestrade looked at him, really looked at him, before dropping his head to a hand as he replaced his phone in its pocket. He seemed disappointed—though not surprised—that Sherlock hadn’t stopped looking when he raised his head.

With a sigh, he explained. ‘A man, in the City. Farringdon.’

John could see that Sherlock’s mind was already rushing ahead of himself as he began to throw out questions.

‘Banker?' 

‘Yes.’

‘Jumping to the suicide conclusion again?’ he asked, widening his eyes for effect. 

Lestrade stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Unless they’ve all stabbed themselves in back streets, no.’

‘All?’

‘This is the third.’ 

‘Third.’ 

Lestrade shot John a look, though the doctor could do nothing but shrug. They both knew there was no turning back from this particular point. Sherlock was _interested_ , now.

‘Yes.’

‘Stabbed?’ 

‘ _Yes_ , Sherlock— _God_ , you know I shouldn’t be discussing this here—’ 

Sherlock ignored Lestrade’s distress. ‘Unusual.’

‘Yes, yes it is,’ Lestrade said, almost snapping if there hadn’t been a degree of affection in his tone. ‘Not really a high brow demise, as you’d expect.’

‘Had they lost a lot?'

‘Exactly the opposite. The lot of them had just closed large, successful deals.'

They were on their feet, then, all of them.‘Same bank?’

Lestrade shook his head, looking up at the detective’s slight frown. ‘Nope.’

 Sherlock paused for a split second, turning to John, before unveiling that slow grin. ‘I’ll get a cab.’ 

‘Sherlock— _Sherlock_!’ Lestrade called as Sherlock made a beeline for the door and only marginally missed slamming the heavy wood into the face of an incoming customer.

John pulled his wallet out of a pocket, and gestured in the direction of the tills as Lestrade looked more and more torn between going after Sherlock and keeping John company. ‘I’ll settle the tab—’

‘John, don’t, it’s my round.’

‘Nah, it’s all right,’ John said, shaking his head and waggling a hand after Sherlock. ‘I reckon I’ve just signed up to pay for times apologizing for Sherlock’s shenanigans for the rest of my life.’ 

Lestrade looked as if he had half a mind to frown, but the grin pushed its way through and John returned it before the DI turned on his heel and followed Sherlock out onto the street. He didn’t think about what he’d said much (it was how he’d lived ever since he’d met Sherlock, after all), but as he placed the appropriate combination of bills and coins on the counter, John realised: 

It wasn’t an uncomfortable thought. 

He only just managed to smother the smile as the barmaid handed him a receipt, but he still got that knowing look. For once, he didn’t mind. It was true, after all. 

*

Turning right instead of left had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Except it really hadn’t been, because even when you’ve just tackled a serial murderer to the ground in the basement of a John Lewis, the Chief Super didn’t appreciate his marital infidelities being outed at two in the morning to an overexcitable group of fast-tracked sergeants. So of course, Sherlock had done it anyway—with a sodding _smile_ , as well, for fuck’s sake—and pointed out the dry-cleaned stains on his tie and the way he was twiddling his wedding ring. He’d even gone as far as to recommend that he began frequenting a different escort, as the one he was currently carrying on with was under investigation by the Vice Squad.

John had tried to smile and go along with it to minimize the potential fallout, although his side was already throbbing and he could really have done with a good hot shower, but even his charms didn’t go very far with a man whose face he’d made run with blood. He couldn’t blame him, really, but… still. He couldn’t be the only man on the force going with the toms. It paid to have a decent relationship with them, after all.

In any case, the bloody idiot had set a pair of particularly ambitious constables on them, so they spun on their heels and made a mad dash for it, because they were just as idiotic as the rest of them, really. And they’d kept running even when they’d lost them, just _because_ , so they stumbled into the foyer of 221 Baker Street almost clambering over each other, propping themselves up against the wall in order to catch their breath. That wasn’t a particularly easy task, either, what with all their grinning and snickering.

That was probably what brought Mrs Hudson out from her perfectly comfortable sitting room in the wee hours of the morning.

‘Sherlock, there are _scorch marks_ in your kitchen!’ she scolded. The impact was lessened a bit by her shoving a handkerchief up the sleeve of her dressing gown, but Sherlock still frowned at this new accusation. John knew it was true; he’d seen him do it. He was starting to wonder now why he hadn’t stopped him at the time. Bit late.

‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs Hudson. Those were carefully controlled explosions.’

She stood before them both, hands on her hips. ‘And why, exactly, are there explosions being carried out in my flats?’

John chuckled. ‘We both know we shouldn’t want to know the answer to that question.’ 

Sherlock shrugged, though that inquisitive furrow between his brows had returned. ‘It all right when we lost the windows.’ 

‘Yes, Sherlock, but that wasn’t _you_ smashing in the windows, was it?’ 

‘How do you know it wasn’t John?’ 

‘Don’t be silly.'

Mrs Hudson’s face cracked then, going from stern to smiling faster than John could blink. It really was all a bit too much, at that point, and there was no real fight in John’s attempt to smother the laughter that was making its way to the surface. Sherlock had just solved a quadruple murder, and here she was scolding him for scorch marks on the kitchen walls. John couldn’t help but grin at the absurdity of it all, of their relationship and their lifestyle and how they even got to this bloody stage anyway. They were mad, utterly mad, _folie å deux._

He caught Sherlock’s eye, and then it snowballed into something even worse because they were both laughing, spluttering a bit when their lungs couldn’t keep up.

And yes, there it was, Sherlock’s hand wrapped around his forearm. Now, how had that got there? It didn’t matter, that was where it was supposed to be, and if John slipped his hand into Sherlock’s later, well, that was all fine, too.

‘Well, I’m not going to do anything about it. I’m not your housekeeper, clean up after yourselves! You two are lucky I’m not going to do anything about your rent! First bullet holes, then the windows go, _then_ you start setting fire to the place…’

Even that seemed funny, in that moment, although John could tell from the twitch of the side of her mouth that she was laughing with them. She didn’t even wait for them to stop the newest bout of chuckles before continuing. Probably for the best, really, otherwise she’d just collapse into giggles with them, and then they’d _really_ be disturbing the neighbours.

‘Just think of it as a wedding present, boys,’ she managed, winking as she turned back to 221A. ‘I’m sure I could be persuaded into providing a cheeky Victoria sponge if you’re peckish in the morning.’

She waved, then, and disappeared behind the familiar closed door. John had half a mind to barge in and accept that offer of cake—they wouldn’t have anything in the fridge that was still in date—but he was still just that side of dazed, and the idea of just going _home_ was more enticing than he ever thought it could be.

John turned to look at Sherlock, and although he hadn’t planned on doing it, he looped an arm around Sherlock’s shoulders and pulled him closer. He wasn’t ready and stumbled a bit, but John just unbuttoned the detective’s blazer and placed a hand on his warm skin, the sensation dulled by cotton. He bumped his nose against Sherlock’s chin, as well, as he turned his face upwards—he really wasn’t aiming well that evening—but he tasted Sherlock’s upper lip between his own anyway, the huffs of breaths through their noses and the heavy beating of their pulses. Sherlock hummed against John’s skin, his fingers around one wrist—like they always were, after a case.

He pulled away, but only barely, and John could feel the thump of Sherlock’s heart against his shoulder. Strong, alive. Loud.

‘What d’you reckon, then?’ asked John, his mouth brushing Sherlock’s as he spoke. ‘Fancy a cake?’

Sherlock frowned, and huffed like a child. ‘I’m not my brother.’

‘No.’ John paused in order to kiss the bridge of Sherlock’s nose. ‘No, you’re not. I’m _glad_ you’re not.’ 

‘I should hope so.’

John scoffed as he pushed his hand against Sherlock’s stomach. ‘Go on, off with you.’ 

The taller man climbed up the first step backwards before turning around and charging up the rest; John remained where he was, a hand on the healing wound site as he gathered enough air to ascend the stairs to his own flat without winding himself again. He watched Sherlock’s shadow move around the shallow entrance, disentangling itself from the coat and scarf in the same way he always had. _They_ always had.

‘Dinner?’

Sherlock’s voice was light, teasing—but serious, just like that first case. That first time they’d almost died; one of many, now.

John smiled at the carpet, fully aware that Sherlock would be watching him from the top of the stairs.

They had come full circle, hadn’t they?

They always did.

And just like that first time, John answered with a word and a grin as he jogged his way upstairs. 

‘Starving.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we've come to the end of this story. I've had a brilliant time writing and posting this, and can't possibly thank all of you enough for all the comments, kudos, and feedback that you've given this project. The best I can do is just to say thank you--thank you so much. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. :)


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